A television star and her footballer boyfriend have adopted a chimpanzee called Bryan in Dorset, saving him from working as a beach photographer’s toothless prop in Mexico.

Gemma Atkinson, an actor in daytime soap Hollyoaks, and Darren Bent, who plays football for Wigan Athletic, adopted five-year-old Bryan after watching the primate's plight on television.

Bryan now lives at Monkey World, a sanctuary for abused and neglected primates near Wool, Dorset. It was founded in 1987 by the late Jim Cronin, who was awarded an honorary MBE in 2006 for his work to protect the species around the world.

Residents of the primate sanctuary feature in Channel Five’s Monkey Life, the world’s first soap opera about the lives of monkeys and apes.

New arrival Bryan had been kept as a prop by a beach photographer in Cancun, Mexico. The photographer had knocked out the monkey’s teeth to stop him biting tourists and Bryan was regularly beaten, according to Ms Atkinson, who already has her eyes trained on a new project – a chimpanzee.

“We desperately want to rescue Coco and give her an adoptive chimpanzee family. We hope they can help us do that,” she said.

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