Police searching for a three-year-old boy who went missing from a playground on the Suffolk-Essex border have found a body.

Noah Woods was last seen at 3pm on Tuesday in Merriam Close in Brantham, near Manningtree, before becoming separated from a relative.

The body was found in Decoy Pond in the village of Brantham. Supt Tom Pearse said: “Formal identification has yet to take place, but the family of Noah Woods have been informed of this development”.

“The discovery of the body is currently being treated as not suspicious but unexplained.”

Officers from Suffolk constabulary said Noah was reported to have run down an alleyway near the playground towards a housing estate.

Earlier on Wednesday, a lake known as Decoy Pond was cordoned off by police tape in Brantham, Suffolk as searches for the missing child, who is autistic and non-verbal with partial hearing loss, continued.