Fuel leak? Any ideas?

THe Mrs filled her new 02 freelander this morn with £40 of petrol - there was quite a few drips underneath the car after she'd filled it - though car still shows as full - the drips have carried on through the day and for now seems to have stopped - still showing as over full. The service station owner said she'd overfilled it - i've never heard of such a thing - apparently she'd had somebody in the other day who lost a lot via overfilling. I don't understand how it can happen - the pump clciked for full and she just rounded up to the nearest 50p - it now smells of petrol outside. Is this jusy strain on the tank or pipes - should we be major worried? It's never happened to me in all the many cars i've owned ove the years. The car passed its mot in Feb - any input or anything i can do to check would be great thanks

The obvious thing to do is get under the car and find the source of the leak.

Petrol tends to clean any area it washes over leaving a black stain, the likely places to check are ther rubber hose connections to the tank, the first being the large filler hose between the body filler tube and the tank itself, there will also be a breather pipe alongside this that takes vapour from the top of the tank to the top of the filler neck.

Be careful apart from being flamable spilt petrol will burn skin as well as stink for a while. If you do find a likely source of the leak, let the tank contents go down before trying to fix it.

Good luck.