A British man whose badly mauled body was found off Australia’s remote north eastern coast is believed to have been attacked and killed by a crocodile.

Mining superintendent Russell Harris, 37, from Eastwood, near Nottingham, disappeared while snorkelling off Groote Eylandt, a mineral-rich island about 35 miles from the mainland, in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

He had been working in the local manganese mine owned by BHP for the past five months. Tragedy struck over the weekend when Mr Harris and a friend went diving off some rocks near a popular island beach.

The two men became separated and when the Briton had still not returned after two hours, the alarm was raised.

Residents mounted a search while the victim’s dustraught American wife waited on the beach. His remains were found in shallow water on Sunday morning, about a mile from where he was last seen.

Police said they believed he had been taken by a 12ft saltwater crocodile, which had been spotted in the area.

Acting Senior Sergeant Steve Pfitzner said the man’s body appeared to have been mauled. "There are a number of injuries on the deceased and there was a crocodile sighted very close to where the decease was located," he added.

Police said they planned to catch the crocodile and relocate it. "If we can’t catch it we may have to give consideration to shooting it," Sergeant Pfitzner said.

Today Tania Price, a spokeswoman for BHP in Melbourne, said that the company was arranging to fly members of Mr Harris’ family out from the UK. "Our priority is to provide support to the family of Mr Harris who had also worked for one of our coal operations in New Mexico before moving to Australia," she added.

A British High Commission official based in Brisbane, Megan Hunt, said,"We will be offering support to Mr Harris’s wife and his family from the UK."

His body will be flown to Darwin for a post mortem.

Fellow workers and residents of Groote Eylandt ('Big Island') described Mr Harris as friendly, well-mannered and reserved. But some claimed that being a relative newcomer to the island may have contributed to his death. "He may not have been fully aware of the potential danger in the water," said one.

Large saltwater crocodiles are not unknown in the area and there have been several attacks in recent years following the introduction of a ban on hunting the creatures.

The Northern Territory government has considered issuing licences to big game hunters, a move it believes would attract thousands of tourist dollars. But the federal government in Canberra is refusing to grant export permits for the skull and skin trophies.

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