A ram is apparently causing such mayhem in rural Derbyshire that a villager wrestled the animal for 10 minutes after being charged by the sheep.

Reporting first by the Derby Telegraph and subsequently confirmed by the BBC suggests the animal being kept in a field in Kirk Ireton has injured several people and even caused broken bones.

There are claims one man had to have a metal plate fitted in his hand.

Details were revealed at a parish council meeting last week, with the local newspaper describing how villagers feel they are the victim of the ram’s “vicious reign of terror”.

A public footpath runs through the field, the BBC said, and villagers want signs erected warning walkers about the safety risk.

“You’ll know from the last meeting we were having trouble with this ram,” parish council chairwoman Kath Stevens told members.

“Well, it’s gradually getting worse and worse.

“One man, as I understand it, has had two operations as a result of this ram, and a steel plate put in, David Evans has been injured, and there’s an old gentleman hobbling around in Hull that’s been badly butted.”

The council has written to the farmer asking them to move the animal.

David Evans attended the meeting, his strapped-up thumb bearing witness to his confrontation and “wrestling” with the animal.

He said he suffered cuts to his hands, one of which has gone septic.

Evans told the BBC: “I crossed the stile at the bottom of the field and walked up and this ram appeared alongside me, quite friendly I thought.

“I looked down and it herded me across the field so I pushed it away, it backed off and just charged.

″(It had a) massive pair of horns, I grabbed its horns and wrestled with it for a bit, put it down and it still came at me again.”

Reporter Gareth Butterfield, of the Derby Telegraph, described what it was like when he came face-to-face with the animal.

“He walked slowly at first, but his pace soon quickened,” he wrote. “This was the point at which I thought I’d better up sticks.”

Derbyshire Police say that dangerous livestock is a civil rather than criminal matter. The BBC says it has attempted to contact the owner of the field for comment.