An adventurer who used to live in Corsham was relieved to be on British soil following an ordeal in which he was detained in a rat-infested immigration centre after being shipwrecked off the Indonesian coast.

Anthony Corbyn battled his way to the shore in a dinghy after his yacht sank in mid-June as he attempted to sail from Cairns in Australia to the Philippines. But after surviving the sea, the 65-year-old had to battle officialdom when local police did not believe his story.

Without documentation to prove his identity he was forced to share a cell with rats, cockroaches and mosquitos before finally being allowed to leave on Friday last week.

He arrived in the UK the following day and is currently recovering from injuries sustained in the initial capsizing of his yacht and the mental anguish of being held for weeks in an immigration centre.

Mr Corbyn's ordeal began when he was forced to abandon his vessel, the Shiseido, after it struck a coral reef and sank just off the Papua coast. The grandfather scrambled into a dinghy but lost his passport and other travel documents in the process.

The dinghy made it close to the shore but overturned in waves, leaving Mr Corbyn to wade through the last part of his journey to land.

He said: "I walked to the shore and collapsed. At this stage the villagers were running along toward me. They picked me up and took me back to their village. It was a primitive village - no water, no toilets and a hut made of stones and straw that 40 people slept in."

After a sleepless night he was taken to authorities in Merauke. Mr Corbyn said: "I got to the police station and within five minutes of my arrival there were 11 police officers in the room taking pictures of me on their mobile phones and then asking me question after question through an interpreter."

"They went on for eight-and-a-half hours. I lost my rag with them - I hadn't slept for 48 hours, hadn't eaten for 24 hours - I said 'You lot of toe rags, I'm not answering anything else'."

He was taken to a hotel for some food but was later transferred to a immigration centre. Mr Corbyn's release was delayed as police probed his "political motives". News eventually came last Thursday that he was due to be flown via Jakarta to the UK.