British snorkeller was killed by crocodile

A post-mortem has confirmed that a British mine worker was killed in a crocodile attack on a remote island off the coast of northern Australia, police said today.

The body of 37-year-old Russell Harris was discovered on Sunday morning in a creek on the island of Groote Eylandt, about one mile from where he disappeared while snorkelling with a friend a day earlier.

In a brief statement, Northern Territory police today said that the “provisional cause of death has been given as multiple injuries consistent with a crocodile attack”.

Police declined to give further details.

Police and wildlife authorities are hunting a 13-foot crocodile suspected of the attack and plan to move it to a more remote area or shoot it.

Harris, from Nottingham, had been working for five months at a large manganese mine on the island operated by Anglo-British mining group BHP Billiton.

He disappeared on Saturday while snorkelling off rocks near Picnic Beach, which police said was a popular swimming spot for workers on the island, despite crocodiles inhabiting the area.

Saltwater crocodiles, which can grow up to 23 feet in length are common in rivers and in the sea around northern Australia. Their numbers have exploded in recent years thanks to a ban on widespread hunting imposed in the 1970s when it was feared the animals could be wiped out by people shooting them for their skins.