Getting stuck in a toilet is no lav-ing matter, as Jennifer Fox found out after spending eight hours trapped in one.

The 50-year-old charity worker, from Sandford-on-Thames, tried frantically to escape after the door jammed while she was in the loo at her Oxford office on Monday.

Her torment began at 11.30am, when Mrs Fox's only colleague left for the day - and locked the front door behind her at the charity office in Stone's Court, Alma Place, off St Clements.

Mrs Fox had left her bag and mobile phone at her desk - and was stuck in the toilet that had no windows or gap around the door.

Initial cries for help got no response, so she turned the extractor fan off so she could be heard more clearly. This also switched the light off - and plunged the room into darkness.

She removed the cistern lid and banged it on the side of the wall. When this failed to attract any attention, she used the zip on her trousers as a screwdriver to remove the door handle.

But there was a metal bar across it and she was unable to free herself that way.

She said: "By this time, it was 5pm and the heating had gone off at 11am so I was freezing. I got undressed, wrapped myself in toilet paper and put my clothes back on. Then I sat on the cistern lid and started screaming for help through the extractor."

In the early evening, a passerby known only as Ali walked down a lane at the back of the building. He heard Mrs Fox's near-hysterical calls and went to get help.

At the same time, her husband Thomas was on his way, after being told she had failed to arrive at Headington School to collect her two daughters Charlotte, 18, and Tamsin, 10.

Having phoned around local hospitals - concerned she may have had an accident - he decided to look for his wife at her workplace.

Mrs Fox said: "Ali was my hero - he was talking to me for about 45 minutes through the air vent while I was crying. Then my husband came and started shouting in too."

Police turned up and used tools from the office to try and get into the loo, but this failed, so they kicked the door down. Mrs Fox was finally freed from her toilet cell at 7.15pm.

She said: "I was in a real state - I just got home, burst into tears and threw up.

"My daughter said I must have been bored in there for all that time but I just kept thinking of new strategies to get out of the loo because I knew no-one would come to the office for a few days.

"I'm glad it's over - but I am a bit scared about going in there again."