Search called off for boy, 14, missing after swimming in River Mersey

A search for a teenager who was reported missing after swimming with friends in the River Mersey has been called off.

The coastguard said it had stood down the search, “pending further information”, at 10am on Monday, 15 hours after it began.

Merseyside police previously said the emergency services received a report of concern at 7pm on Sunday for the safety of a 14-year-old boy who had been swimming near the derelict Seaforth radar tower off Crosby beach.

The boy’s friends came out of the river but had become separated from the 14-year-old, police said.

The stretch of Crosby beach near the radar tower was cordoned off on Monday morning as the multi-agency search continued. It involved the coastguard, the RNLI, police, fire and rescue units, the ambulance service and a helicopter.

A spokesperson for HM Coastguard said later: “The search for a person reported missing in the Crosby beach area on June 30 was stood down, pending further information, at about 10am on July 1.”

Members of the public approaching the beach were being turned away by police officers on Monday morning.

The 30-metre-tall Seaforth radar tower was put up in the 1960s to monitor Mersey shipping channels. The need for it has since long been overtaken by new technologies and it is now derelict.

Nearby is the artist Antony Gormley’s Another Place installation on Crosby beach, consisting of 100 “iron men” spread across 3km of the foreshore and stretching almost 1km out to sea.