A SUBMARINE was deployed this morning to search for the body of a Clitheroe diver missing for ten days.

Neil Robertson disappeared last Saturday after being swept away in a force 10 gale while exploring a sunken wreck off the west coast of Scotland.

Police believe the body of the 51-year-old is still be near the popular diving spot around the Shuna, a vessel which sank in 1913 near the Isle of Mull, after studying tidal flows over the weekend.

Today, two divers from Strathchlyde Police stepped up the search with a small submarine, which has been loaned to the force by an off-shore private company.

PC Ken Wallace, who is heading the search, said: "We are very grateful that this equipment has been donated for us to use free of charge from Buckaneers Off-shore Services.

"It is a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), which is a small propelled submarine on the end of a cable designed to search underwater.

"We are very hopeful this will be successful as we have studied the tides over the weekend and believe with the weights on his body and the weak current in the depths of the bay he will not have moved far."

Mr Robertson's parents, who live in Moorland Crescent, Clitheroe, and wife Wendy, who is staying at a hotel near the Lockaline Dive Centre, were anxiously awaiting news. His colleagues watched helplessly as the gale-force conditions took him away from them and back under the surface at 2.30pm last Saturday.

The search, which has so far involved a helicopter, a lifeboat, six other vessels and a specialist diving team, was called off on Monday due to worsening weather conditions.

Mr Robertson is thought to have left East Lancashire five months ago to live in the Murray area of Aberdeenshire with Wendy and their young son, Harry. The couple lived in a rented farmhouse on a remote hilltop farmhouse in the village of Rothes, about 150 miles from Mull.