Hayley Mace The search for a missing swimmer who got into difficulties off Yarmouth's North Beach has been called off.

Hayley Mace

The search for a missing swimmer who got into difficulties off Yarmouth's North Beach has been called off.

The man, in his early to mid 20s, went missing at about 2pm on Thursday.

The search continued on Friday but today a spokesman for the Yarmouth Coastguard confirmed that the formal search for the man had stopped.

The spokesman said: “Our volunteer coast watch stations will be keeping an eye out for anything, as will all the lifeguards. Any coastguard patrols will also be looking for him but the formal search is no longer going on to any degree.

“Anybody who has been in the water so long would most likely have succumbed to hypothermia. I imagine it will now be two or three days before anything more is known.”

On Thursday afternoon, a friend who had been in the sea with the missing man, who is not thought to be local, managed to swim back to shore and raise the alarm.

A search helicopter and two lifeboats joined local police and the coastguard searching the area, on what was one of the hottest and busiest days of the year so far in the resort.