‘My first reaction was total horror’

phone to my wife and ran to get some boots on. As I came out here, she shouted ‘it’s too late, it’s going round the bend at the end.’

“You could actually see it, still going, still afloat, round by the trees.”

Police confirmed they had received a report at 4.13pm on Monday that a vehicle had left Hoveringham Road and gone into the river.

A huge multi-agency search operation was launched involving police, ambulance and fire services.

Enquiries continued yesterday with the Nottinghamshire Police dive team searching the river, assisted by the North West region dive team.

Other local people spoke of their shock and sadness after hearing about the incident.

Louise Cooper-king, who lives in Hoveringham, saw a helicopter landing from her kitchen window at around 5pm on Monday.

She said: “We’d seen the helicopter circling quite a bit and it was going up and down the river.

“Quite a few officers were on foot and we could hear sirens. It really is a difficult terrain around there and it was getting dark.

“It [the river] flows fast in the middle. Then around 20 more officers arrived on foot.

“We knew it was a car but at that point we thought nobody was in it. It’s very sad.”

Carol Standish, who lives in Bleasby, said: “My first reaction was total horror. There were so many police here and the helicopter was going for absolutely ages.”

Matt Wesley, 24, said his parents were walking the dog on Monday night when they saw police.

He said: “A copper came running up and told them to keep an eye out for a car that had gone in the river. Then obviously we saw the fire brigade, the helicopter and everything.

“There was absolutely loads here. I’ve never seen anything like this here, it’s unreal - I can’t believe it.”

Anyone with any information on the incident is asked to call Nottinghamshire police on 101 quoting incident number 500 of February 1.