BREAKING NEWS: Body of 16-year-old boy who jumped into the Thames to cool off is found by volunteer divers after police failed to send in own search team
Ellis Downes (left), 16, jumped into the water near Culham in Oxfordshire to cool off with friends on Saturday evening but got into difficulty as he tried to swim back to the riverbank and disappeared
from view. The boy, from Harwell, was pulled under by the current at about 9pm on Saturday, before Thames Valley Police launched an investigation that was later allegedly scaled down. His family then launched their own manhunt to find the boy and slammed police efforts to locate him, claiming that the force was 'useless' and under-resourced. The sister, father and a close family friend of Ellis all said police had failed to get divers to the scene, promising them only today - leaving the distraught family to hire their own speedboat (top right) to trawl the waterway and request their own dive team.
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