A seal or porpoise looking for an easy meal sparked a shark attack scare over the weekend.

A man fishing on the coast in Hartlepool was alarmed to see a large, submerged marine animal snatch the bait from the end of his line. Soon after two other people reported seeing a shark.

Alan Guy, 66, was adamant that he had seen a shark and said: "All I saw was its tail but it was a shark, a blue one with a white tip."

National newspapers then carried reports of bathers fleeing the town's beaches, as in the Steven Speilberg movie Jaws.

Humber Coastguard later confirmed sightings not of a shark, but of a porpoise in Hartlepool Bay.

A lock-keeper at the Hartlepool Marina told The Northern Echo: "We heard the shark reports and when we picked ourselves up from the floor from laughing, I asked a few of the fishermen in the charter boats and they said there had been a dolphin or porpoise in the area for the past week.

"Sharks don't normally come in this close and if it had been a blue shark, it would have been looking for something more substantial than half a mackerel. It sounds more like a seal or dolphin's trick."

Family pods of porpoises were seen swimming off the North-East shoreline last week.

Derek Scales, of the Sea Life Centre, in Scarborough, said seals were also known to take bait from fishing boat lines.

"Seals are cheeky and very inquisitive," he said.

"If they smell half a fish hanging off a line, they might just swim up and take it."

Coastguard watch manager Mike Green said: "We carried out an investigation following three separate sightings - and had a confirmed report of a porpoise."