The culprits behind the vandalism at Jeremy Clarkson’s farm have been revealed, it was…. Ant and Dec!

Earlier today footage was released that showed three tonnes of compost being dumped on Clarkson’s car.

There were also photos of supposed protestors camping outside the Diddly Squat farm in Chipping Norton, putting banners up that read “Save Our Turf, Save The Earth”.

Read more on the 'protests' here.

It turns out that this was actually part of the new series of Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.

Local police have now confirmed that they took no action because it was a prank filmed for the show.

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police tweeted: “We would like to confirm that this was not a police matter as this was a television film crew filming actors in a protest scene. We were made aware of the filming in advance, and no offences have been committed.”

Clarkson, 61, stood by his partner Lisa Hogan and could only look on helplessly as a masked man used a digger to cover his Range Rover in compost on Tuesday September 28.

An ITV source said: “Ant and Dec have been targeting Jeremy for years, it's a major coup for them. All the protesters were actors and did a brilliant job of pranking him - he had no idea.

“Ant and Dec were on site dressed up as part of the mob. They can't believe it went so well.”