Norfolk Police officers rescued after being cut off by tide

The officers were helped off a beach near Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast

Two police officers searching for a missing woman had to be rescued from a beach by a lifeboat crew when they got cut off by the tide.

The officers were looking for a "high-risk missing person" on a beach near Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast on Saturday night when they became stuck.

The woman was found safe and well on a nearby beach.

Only then was a lifeboat diverted to "recover" the officers, an RNLI spokesman said.

Philip Smith, from the RNLI Happisburgh Lifeboat, said his teams were called out by the coastguard at about 21:10 BST to assist in the search for the missing woman.

He said one boat was then asked "to recover two police officers who had been searching the beach towards Happisburgh and found themselves cut off by the tide".

"The Coastguard tasked us with picking up two police officers who'd been searching the beach just below Happisburgh church, and the tide had come in and they'd got cut off, so we went in and picked them up and returned them to Walcott," he said.

A Norfolk Police spokeswoman confirmed two officers "were at risk of becoming cut off" and were assisted off the beach.