THE BODY of a man was pulled from the sea by a passer-by following an extensive emergency services search.

The alarm was raised at 9.30am this morning about a male swimming in the sea off Hove beach at Oriental Place.

 A search was carried out by the coastguard and supported by Sussex Police officers and other services including the RNLI.

A body was pulled from the water at the beach by the Meeting Place Cafe and Peace Statue on Hove seafront four hours later.

It has since been confirmed as the body of the missing male and police are now making efforts to notify his family.

Architectural technician Si McKay, 48 from Brighton, was sitting on the beach for most of the incident.

He said: “We came to the beach at about 10.30am and there was already a problem.

“There was a guy out swimming and a passer-by or someone watching him swimming saw him in the water and then saw him disappear.

“Then the helicopter came and started searching and so was the lifeboat.

“They had cordoned the area off and stopped people coming on to that bit of the beach

“When we came back to the beach about an hour and a half later the body was on the beach and everyone was surrounding it and it remained there for ages.

“They put up barriers around it, there were two police officers, all the lifeboat crew, about three coastguards.”

Another beach visitor, he did not wish to be named, said: “We first noticed something when we were at Hove Lagoon, we heard the helicopter and there were two swimmers in the water and we thought there might have been a swimming event on.

“It was only when the helicopter was getting closer and closer to the shore that we thought that someone might have gone into the water and they were looking for his or her body.

“All we could hear was just constant sirens, I’ve never heard so many sirens and we saw the flashing lights.

“It was really calm out at sea this morning, just the wind blowing the waves across.

“It is so sad.”

A Coastguard spokeswoman said: “We received a 999 call that someone was in the water and an extensive search was carried out with Shoreham Coastguard, Brighton RNLI, the search and rescue helicopter from Lydd, SECAmb and Brighton lifesavers.

“A member of the public saw someone was swimming and then were no longer visible and so they called 999.”

Lifeguards are stationed on Brighton and Hove beaches from the end of May until the end of school holidays in September.