Maldon's celebrity gay dads thought they were “going to die” after being rescued from the roof of their car when it got stuck in five feet of water.

Tony, 48, and Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 43, of Main Road, Danbury, were travelling through a ford near Hurrells Lane, Little Baddow at about 12midnight on Sunday morning when a river bank flooded.

Their Range Rover became submerged before the force of the water spun the car round three times and gushed in, cutting out the electric and trapping them in the vehicle.

The millionaire couple, the first to father surrogate children in the UK, were returning home after attending Essex Fashion Week when they said the water seemed to come out of nowhere.

Tony, who runs the British Surrogacy Centre in Chandlers Quay, Maldon, with Barrie, said: “We got to what should have been just a very easy ford to cross, but just as we got towards it, the river banks broke, and the water just gushed in.

“The water was not there when we first went towards it then suddenly there was this tidal wave that came from nowhere.”

See this week's MBS for the full story.