A runner who came across four migrants who had landed on Kingsdown Beach spoke of his horror when he found a dark shadow on the shoreline.

The resident, who we are not naming, said he feared the worst. But instead of being a human fatality it was a dead seal being knocked by the waves.

At 7.45am he was heading to the Rifle Range at Oldstairs Beach to meet a friend for their Sunday run when he stumbled across a partly submerged dinghy on the shoreline.

He also saw and photographed six lifejackets - one of which he claims was child size - on the pebbles.

He said: “The boat looked brand new. It looked like the first time it has been used. The lifejackets were brand new too and the engine was still full of fuel.”

He claims he saw four men in black on Undercliffe Road who were “knocking on doors”.

“They were also talking to a chap in a campervan who gave one of them a duvet to wrap around himself as he was hypothermic,” he said.

Border Force officials who arrived to detain the small group told him they were looking for more migrants to account for the six life jackets.

It was less than an hour later, when the man returned from his run, that noticed something unusual in the water in front of the Zetland Arms pub. It was approximately 400m away from where the dinghy was left.

He told the Mercury: “I was horrified. I could just see a dark shadow floating in the water.

“I went to see what it was thinking it was a body.

“I really feared it was but it was in fact a dead seal.”

The Home Office confirmed that eight men were found on the county’s beaches on Sunday before a boat with another eight men was spotted in the Channel at Dover.