Police have recovered the body of a teenage boy from the River Thames ten miles from where a kayak was found abandoned on the water shortly before Christmas.
It was believed that a walker spotted the young man’s body floating face-down in the Thames at East Molesey, Surrey at 8.30am today and called the police.
Surrey Police said they have not received any reports of a missing person fitting the description of the man.
The recovery of the man’s body may be linked to the discovery of a kayak which was found floating ten miles away upside down in the Thames before Christmas
Police recovered the body today of a man who was floating face down in the River Thames
The young man was pulled out of the river and taken to St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey where a post mortem is expected to be carried out in order to identify the young man
Officers are currently trying to identify the man and determine the cause of his death.
They are also trying to assess whether the man is linked to a kayak which was recovered from the River Thames ten miles further upstream on Saturday evening.
Scenes of crime officers, detectives, paramedics and the fire brigade were all called to the scene in Graburn Way, East Molesey and police launched a full-scale investigation into the discovery of the body.
The young man’s body was later pulled out of the river and taken to the mortuary at St Peter’s Hospital, Chertsey, where a post mortem examination was expected to be carried out later to establish the cause of death.
Police have said it is too early to confirm whether the recovery of the man’s body is linked to the discovery of an overturned kayak on the River Thames in Staines on Saturday.
‘It is far too early to make any comment or to speculate on what might have happened for the man to be found in the river,’ said a spokesman for Surrey Police.
On Christmas eve, the force issued an appeal for anyone who could shed light on the discovery of an empty kayak in the river at Staines, about 10 miles from East Molesey, on Saturday.
Police carried out a search of the river following the discovery of the vessel but called it off later and a spokesman said: ‘We now do not believe that there was anyone in the boat when it capsized. However we are keen for more information on the boat, where it has come from and how it came to be floating down the river.
‘We’re also keen to speak to anyone who may have seen someone getting out of the River Thames. We are keen to find the owner of the kayak that was found floating, capsized, down the River Thames at Staines on Saturday evening.
‘The kayak was retrieved from the river at around 6:20pm, and officers from Surrey Police, South East Coast Ambulance, Surrey Fire and Rescue Service and Surrey Search & Rescue, carried out a search of the river and the river bank.’
Police issued these two photos of the retrieved kayak and appealed to the public to come forward if they knew how it ended up in the river at Staines, Surrey or if they knew the owner.
The white coloured canoe had several distinctive stickers which could have related to licences to row on the River Thames.
The kayak and the man were found more than ten miles apart on the River Tahmes
The kayak had stickers dating to 2002 and 2003 offering a freshwater river exemption