The team has been practising for six months

It took five hours and 27 minutes for the team, bound together at the waist, to cover 26.2-miles (about 42km).

The group were attempting to create a record for "Most Linked Runners to Complete a Marathon".

Dressed in striped prison outfits the team managed to raise about �3,500 for various charities.

'Bad knee and cramps'

Max Rushden, one of the team who is a reporter with BBC London 94.9, said the run was tiring.

The team were chained at the waist

He said: "I will never ever, ever run a marathon again. Twenty six miles is too long for me."

He added that the group aimed to complete the course in four-and-a-half hours but it took them longer as one of the men, who had broken his knee recently, insisted on running although he was recovering while another developed cramps on the way.

The money raised by the team will be donated to Dreams Come True, a charity which helps fulfil the dreams of terminally and seriously ill children, and Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity.