Police have confirmed a “missing person” is the focus of a major search operation in an Oxfordshire river.

Officers have been looking for a person in the River Windrush in Witney for three days.

They received reports of someone in the water on Monday (February 12) and rushed to the spot near Windrush Leisure Centre.

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Drones and helicopters have been used in the search by Thames Valley Police, Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, and National Police Air Service.

Nobody has yet been found, but the search was still underway on Wednesday evening.

A police spokesman told the Oxford Mail the search is for a “missing person” with the force expected to put out an appeal “as soon as possible”.

He confirmed officers were not searching for a child and that “it was not a child who was reported in the river”.

A spokesman for the South Central Ambulance Service said he would not be commenting on a police-led matter.

He added that the ambulance service was stood down at around 5pm on Monday.

It comes after a witness of the search said she thought it could be a child who had fallen into the water.

The woman, who asked not to be named, told this newspaper: “I immediately thought, ‘it’s half term, I hope it’s not a kid.”

She added: “If someone fell in, you’d have a job getting them out.

“We walk up there daily and it’s been so fast flowing and muddy lately."