A five-year-old girl walked miles alone along a beach after getting lost.
The girl had been on an outing with her Sunday school on Hipkins Beach at Walton when she went missing, just after 1.30pm on Saturday.
A group including her mother and wheelchair-bound father searched frantically for her. But when they failed to find her the alarm was raised and a full-scale search was launched.
Clacton and Walton coastguards joined the hunt along with the beach patrol at about 2.30pm.
Chris Finn, a member of the Walton coastguard rescue team who took part in the search, said the little girl had walked about a mile to Southcliff in Walton when she was spotted by a couple.
Police were on the brink of getting the rescue helicopter involved when she was finally found by Frinton beach patrol warden Angela Edwards at about 4pm - two-and-a-half hours after she went missing.
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