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

The man was spotted swimming in the sea off Brighton beach opposite Oriental Place at 9.30am on Saturday.

Emergency services were called when he disappeared from view.

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

Four hours later, a body was pulled from the water a few hundred metres along the beach by the Meeting Place Cafe and Peace Statue on Hove seafront.

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

Architectural technician Si McKay, 48, from Brighton, 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.”

Another beach visitor said: “We first noticed something when we were at Hove Lagoon, we heard the helicopter.

“As the helicopter was getting closer and closer to the shore 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.

“It was really calm out at sea this morning. 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.”

The man has not been yet been formally identified.