A front page tale of cockroaches in Chinese food didn’t get to every reader of the Bristol Evening Post - after bulk copies were bought up by mystery shoppers in its circulation area.

The edition led on Monday with a story of how the Sea Palace in Weston-super-Mare was fined £20,000 for admitting eight food safety offences.

But the story never saw the light of day for some readers after many of the 1,400 North Somerset editions were snapped up as soon as they hit the shelves.

Sales were up in Weston-super-Mare itself by 30 per cent and the North Somerset edition as a whole was up by 12 per cent, selling out in many areas.

A circulation department spokesman for the paper said: "We were inundated with calls from retailers saying that all their supplies had been bought up.

"When something like that happens, you have to ask why, and it seems people were going into the shops and buying up the supplies."

The cost of buying all 1,400 copies of the Bristol Evening Post would have been around £500.

A source at the Post said: "We had reports of people going into every newsagent, garage and shop to buy up copies.

"One proprietor said they bought every paper from their garage, asked for a receipt and then asked where the nearest paper shop was!

"We have had calls from readers asking us to reprint the story as they didn’t get to see a copy when it came out, but it was a court report from Friday so we had to decline."

Among the national press that picked up the tale were the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Times, the Mirror, and Sky News online. Radio Five Live also carried a feature in its late night show.

The Sun reported how newsagents spanning a 40-mile radius of the restaurant reported the same pair in their shops.

Sky News said the restaurant owners had denied involvement in the buying frenzy, and had apologised for the food offence in court.