A "suspicious" sighting believed to be someone in difficulty at sea sparked an evening call-out for emergency services.

A RNLI lifeboat, HM coastguard rescue officers and police officers all responded after numerous reports of something suspicious in the sea off the Suffolk coast.

The Lowestoft RNLI Lifeboat, Patsy Knight, was alerted at 7.04pm on Sunday, September 19 after concerned residents raised the alarm that something black - thought possibly to be a person in difficulties - was floating in the sea close to Ness Point.

Lowestoft lifeboat coxswain John Fox said: “When we reached the location of the sighting, adjacent to the end of Hamilton Road, we soon spotted a dark shape floating in the darkness close to the shore.

"We shone our searchlight onto the object and realised that it was in fact a small, abandoned marker buoy.

"It may have been a floating lobster pot marker which may have become snagged on an old ship’s boiler on the seabed there.

"It was a case of a false alarm, with good intent.”