Padlocked, handcuffed, with his head submerged in water, escapologist Daniel Hunt took on the Death Tank Challenge in front of an anxious crowd.

For 30 nail-biting seconds the audience, along with Daniel, held their breath as it was touch and go as to whether he was going to succeed.

Loud choral music blasting out from speakers added to the adrenaline-fuelled atmosphere as Daniel was hand-cuffed, shackled by his feet, hoisted up on a pulley system and suspended upside down on a ten-foot iron frame.

His head was then lowered into a perspex box and his neck clamped into place by stocks, held by four padlocks, which were checked by the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Councillor Robin Owens.

As the tank started to fill up with water, Daniel began his challenge, armed only with a hair pin, which he had borrowed from the Lady Mayoress, Janet Owens.

It took Daniel just 60 seconds to pick most of the locks.

But then the feeling of panic spread like wild fire through the audience as it was obvious he had a problem with the last lock.

With Daniel's head submerged in water, a look of fear on his face and the tank steaming up due to lack of oxygen, everyone waited with baited breath to see if the modern Houdini would make it.

As the lock eventually sprung open, Daniel raised his head out of the water and the audience shouted, cheered and clapped for more than a minute - in a mixture of admiration and sheer relief.

The death-defying event, which took place on Saturday at Bradford's Industrial Museum in Moorside Road, Eccleshill, was based on Houdini's Water Torture Cell.

But in his escape Daniel goes one step further than his hero as there is no curtain in front of the tank, so he has to free himself in full view of the audience.

Daniel, who comes from Durham, said: "I get a real adrenaline rush from it and I'm still shaking now.

"But it is always a good day if I am still alive."

The 29-year-old said his friends and family didn't want him to do the challenge, because there had been a problem when he attempted it the week before.

He said one friend had said to him "enough is enough."

"I had a problem with the second lock and I could feel my lungs pounding.

"People say you've got to be mad to do this, and I suppose you have.

"These are genuine escapes, there is no magic involved. I take challenges from the police and from prisons to escape from places and I've got the cuts and bruises to prove it," he said. Daniel and his assistant Annette Claire, 24, collectively known as Amethyst, have travelled the world working alongside some of the country's top performers such as Freddie Starr, Joe Longthorne and TV's Chuckle Brothers. His next challenge will be to escape from a condemned cell in the Old Castle Keep in Newcastle.

No stranger to prison break-outs, Daniel has already escaped from the condemned cell in York Castle Museum, where notorious highwayman Dick Turpin was imprisoned.

Councillor Robin Owens said: "I like watching magic, but I didn't like watching that. It was more than a little unnerving. I will not be adding it to my list of stunts for the Lord Mayor's Appeal!"

e-mail: ali.davies@telegraphandargus.co.uk

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