POLICE have discovered a body on a beach on the Isle of Wight.

The body was found on the beach below High Down chalk pit, officers confirmed last night.

The family of missing woman Patricia Anne Tolfree, who was reported missing on Saturday, has been informed.

The body has not yet been identified.

A major search and rescue operation was launched after the 67-year-old was last seen by her husband on Friday morning.

She had planned to go to the mainland to visit friends in Winchester for the day but police were alerted when she did not return home that evening or contact her family.

Police called Solent Coastguard to help them search for Patricia when her blue 57 registration Volkswagen Polo was found in a car park at Tennyson Down.

Lifeboats from the Needles, Ventnor and a rescue helicopter from Lee-on-the-Solent searched the waters from Freshwater Bay to the Needles for six and a half hours but Patricia was not found.