Great White shark feared to be on a killing spree off the Suffolk coast

The bloody, battered creature had been bitten in half and was found washed up on the beach by a stunned veteran fisherman in Suffolk.

That's less than 60 miles south from where a horribly mutilated seal was discovered in Norfolk, just last week - sparking a hunt for a giant shark on the loose in British waters.

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Mike Bakun, 53, of Eyke, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, was walking on the beach south of Aldeburgh on New Year's Day when he found the porpoise.

He said he had never seen injuries like it in four decades of fishing the coast.

Mr Bakun, who has fished off Suffolk for 40 years, said last night: "I looked down and thought, 'what is this?' I scrambled down the shingle and saw that it had been savaged and looked in a terrible old mess.

"I took my mobile phone out to take a picture and then I rolled it over, saw the remains of the bill, realised it was not a seal and was a porpoise.

"It was not in decay, it was still fresh but the back end had been totally bitten off."

Mike, who used to run a sea anglers' club, said he estimated the remains of the porpoise weighed between 50 and 60lbs and it was from 3ft 6in to 4ft long.

"It was as if the back end had been chomped right off and I thought 'how strange'. Then the next day I saw on the news that a seal had been savaged off the Norfolk coast," he said.

"I have never seen a porpoise on our beach even though I have spent thousands and thousands of hours fishing although I know they occasionally occur in our waters.

"It is a real mystery what happened to it.

"It has been attacked by something, but what?"

The National Oceanography Centre in Southampton is now very keen to analyse pictures taken of the porpoise to try to establish if it was killed by a rogue killer shark.

The centre has already confirmed that the wounds inflicted on a seal found at Sheringham on the north Norfolk coast could be caused by a shark.

The seal was pictured by Sheringham lifeboatman and professional photographer Chris Taylor.

He sent the pictures to Dr Ken Collins at the National Oceanography Centre.

Chris said: "Great whites can survive in these waters and it doesn't look like it was caused by a boat propeller because of how clean cut it is."

Kate Price, a vet nurse wildlife assistant at Norfolk Animal Hospital, near King's Lynn, said she had never come across such an injury.

Fights between competing bull seals and attacks on seal pups by non-parental adults were fairly common, but the injuries inflicted were completely different.

She said: "We get quite a few bite injuries in, but nothing like that."

Ali Hood, director of conservation for The Shark Trust, said: "Within British waters there are over 20 species of shark but they are no threat to people and to make the suggestion that it~s a great white is an incredible fairytale.

"It's extremely unlikely. There are other predatory fish in our seas and whenever we have strong easterly winds all sorts of carcasses wash up on our beaches which leads to this kind of reporting."

A great white shark, one of nature's most lethal killing machines, can travel at 43mph, weigh 4,500lbs and kill prey such as seals and porpoises within seconds.