FOUR teenage boys have been praised after they helped to find a missing child at the coast.

Onlookers said a mother and her six-year-old daughter were at East Pier at West Bay when the girl suddenly went missing.

Local resident, Margie Barbour, was also at the beach at the time and searched for the young girl with the increasingly worried mother.

Whilst they were searching up and down the beach, Ms Barbour came across four young men who were just about to leave the area.

She said: "I came across this group of lads and I just said 'have you seen a little girl? She's gone missing, please help'. The boys responded immediately - two ran one way and the other two ran the other.

"I was running a little bit behind them and they were running like the wind, zig zagging around corners.

"The level of panic was increasing by the second and there was a lot of anxiety. The level of panic in the mother’s voice was escalating as she was understandably getting more and more worried. I suddenly heard one of the boys shout out ‘she’s here’ and I was so relieved."

Ms Barbour added: "The poor girl was in floods of tears in the car park next to the Bridport Arms. At that point her mother came racing round the corner and hugged her very tightly."

The incident happened on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 30.

The four young men in question are all sixth form students at Beaminster School - Alfie Webb, Charlie Smith, Thomas Dulwich and Tom Kiddle.

After they had located the young girl, they quietly walked away from the scene.

Ms Barbour added: "The young men responded so quickly and were so helpful and instrumental in finding her.

"When they found her, there was no sense of hanging about to soak in the glory, they walked away when the focus was elsewhere before they were able to be given any deserved credit.

"I want to say a big thank you to those boys as I’m a mother and I know what it’s like – this is every parent’s nightmare and they could not have been more helpful."