Hayley MacePolice inquiries continued yesterday after the body of a pensioner was found in an alleyway near Lowestoft.The 67-year-old woman was discovered on Monday morning in Carlton Colville, near Lowestoft, after an overnight search by the emergency services, including local coastguards and lifeboats.Hayley Mace

Police inquiries continued yesterday after the body of a pensioner was found in an alleyway near Lowestoft.

The 67-year-old woman was discovered on Monday morning in Carlton Colville, near Lowestoft, after an overnight search by the emergency services, including local coastguards and lifeboats.

The full-scale search was called off when the woman, who is expected to be named by police this week, was found by a member of the public in an alleyway off The Street just before 10am.

She had been reported missing from a property in the village on Sunday evening.

A Suffolk police spokesman said yesterday that initial inquiries had shown there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the woman's death.

She said: 'The police were alerted on Sunday at about 7.40pm to reports of a missing woman in Carlton Colville.

'At that time, there were concerns about her wellbeing because she had previously expressed suicidal thoughts. Her death is not being treated as suspicious.'

It is thought that she would have been vulnerable to the elements overnight, with temperatures falling below freezing.

The police spokesman said that the woman had been staying at an address in Carlton Colville, from where she was reported missing, but was from nearby south Lowestoft.

A massive search operation was sparked in the early hours of Monday morning to hunt for the missing woman, with coastguard teams and lifeboat crews from Lowestoft and Gorleston searching parts of the Norfolk and Suffolk coastline.

A Sea King rescue helicopter from Wattisham in Suffolk also helped to search the coast.

The matter has now been referred to the coroner and a post-mortem examination will be held in due course. It is expected that the woman will be named once an inquest into her death has been formally opened by the coroner later this week.