MANY people have tried to break world records, but this one is being labelled the “grossest” world record attempt - the most amount of maggots moved by the mouth in one hour.

Charlie Bell, 35, of Dawlish Road, Leyton, undertook the squeamish challenge on Sky1’s entertainment series Guinness World Records Smashed in which he is filmed grabbing mouthfuls of the larva into his mouth and dropping them into a container.

The self-styled prankster described the experience: “The hardest part of this record was trying to control my gag reflex.

"I didn’t expect such a big quantity and they go to the toilet so it stinks. It was like putting my head in the toilet. There were bits of their innards and sawdust getting stuck in my teeth.

“The first mouthful wasn’t bad and I didn’t mind the movement too much, but the smell was terrible and at one point I thought I wasn’t going to be able to carry on. It was an endurance test really.”

Mr Bell said he practiced at home for months with rice but wasn’t too worried about having them in his mouth because he is a fisherman and often warms them up before putting them on the hook.

To clinch the title he had to move more than 15kg of maggots in the allocated time – that’s a whopping two and half pints of maggots per minute - in front of a squealing audience.

Whether or not he achieved this will be revealed when the programme, presented by Steve Jones and Konnie Huq, is screened on Sky 1 on Sunday at 8pm.

But performing in front of a screaming audience was not a new experience for the joker who has been carrying out pranks on people since he was a child and is now trying to forge a career out of it.

As well as doing stand-up comedy, he makes video clips of public stunts in the style of television comedian Dom Joly, where he goes into public places and shocks people with announcements on a megaphone.

Some of his pranks have landed him in trouble, but he said he still hopes to turn it into a television series and has filmed several pilots.

Asked whether he would repeat the maggot challenge if someone beats his record, he said: “If someone breaks the maggot record, they are welcome to it.

"But I want to have the grossest one. At the moment they are saying this is so if someone broke it I would have to rise to the challenge and do something else.”