A DORSET community is in mourning after the search for two boys - swept into the sea in a tragic accident during a severe storm - was called off.

A team of specialist divers is now searching for the bodies of 16-year-old Matthew Myburgh and 15-year-old Charlie Morrell in and around the waters of Lulworth Cove.

Tragedy struck just after 7pm on Thursday when the teenagers, both from the Lulworth area, are thought to have been fishing on the rocks at the cove.

The pair were swept into the raging waters by a huge wave as they scrambled across the rocks towards Stair Hole.

Keen rugby player Richard Lawrence, 15, was with the missing boys, but was standing on a higher ledge so escaped the waves.

He jumped into the water when he heard his friends' shouts for help in a desperate bid to help them. But, although he could hear them he was overcome by the waves and could not get to them.

Richard, who is said today to be "absolutely devastated", managed to make it back to shore where he raised the alarm at a nearby hotel.

A 19-hour search for the missing teenagers followed involving more than 100 people including Dorset Police, RNLI lifeboats from Swanage and Weymouth, coastguard teams from St Albans, Wyke Regis, Kimmeridge and Lulworth Cove, and the Dorset and Hampshire Search and Rescue volunteers.

But all that was found was a trainer belonging to Matthew and a rucksack believed to belong to one of the teenagers.

On Friday afternoon the rescue mission was called off and Dorset Police began a recovery operation.

Mark Rodaway, head of operations south for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, said: "Given the awful weather conditions the boys and the rescue teams were faced with, a successful outcome was unlikely.

"We came to the hard decision that it was appropriate that we move the search and rescue to a search and recovery."

Chief Insp Nick Maton, from Dorset Police, ensured the boys' families and local residents that the search did not stop there.

He said the mission would continue with the Somerset and Avon units going into the cove with specialist divers using high-tech software being brought in to search the waters from the nearby Army range along to Portland.

Mr Rodaway said the teenagers' families had praised everyone involved in the search, especially the helicopter pilots who had to work in what he said was the worst storm in living memory.

The three boys are understood to be pupils at the Purbeck School and were said to be "inseparable".

First published: November 5