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May 3, 2007updated 17 May 2007 11:30am

Baked beans? Try a prosthetic leg

By Press Gazette

Softie paparazzo Ian Whittaker's baked bean ordeal at the hands of foppish actor Hugh Grant pales dramatically into insignificance, it seems.

When Press Gazette asked colleagues: "What's the worst thing you've ever had thrown at you?" British Press Awards photographer of the year Andrew Stenning stepped up with… a prosthetic leg.

Love Actually star Grant (pictured) was arrested on suspicion of assault after throwing a Tupperware-like box of baked beans at Whittaker. He might at least have offered him a cup of tea and a slice.

Stenning, however, was working for an agency outside Caenarfon Court back in 1982 when he was confronted by a man accused of arson. Upset with the media attention, the man came armed with the ideal weapon.

"He just took his leg off and threw it at me. But it was plastic so it just bounced off," said Stenning.

Violent perhaps, a criminal mastermind definitely not. The assailant had tried to burn down his dad's restaurant but in the fire got his best false leg trapped.

"The police knew who he was, because he left his leg in the building," said Stenning.

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Grant was this week arrested on suspicion of assault after throwing the beans at Whittaker and launching a verbal attack on him. Grant was questioned at Notting Hill police station, and denies the allegations.

There was better news for Grant last Friday when he accepted undisclosed damages to bring to an end a libel action he had launched against the Mail on Sunday.

It was over a story in February which alleged that while in a relationship with Jemima Khan he had "conducted a flirtation with a senior female Warner Bros executive".

What's the strangest item you've had thrown at you in the line of work? Tell us on the Press Gazette editor's blog

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