EMERGENCY services in West Somerset were drafted in to help with the search for missing four-year-old Dylan Cecil last Sunday.

Dylan, from Kettering, Northamptonshire, disappeared after falling off the jetty at Burnham-on-Sea, sparking a major search and rescue operation.

Minehead's lifeboat crews were out in action for more than six hours in total during the evening in a marathon operation which included helping in the search for the youngster.

The Minehead crews joined colleagues from Burnham and Weston-super-Mare, along with coastguard teams, police and RAF helicopter crews in scouring the area until the hunt was called off.

Coastguards from Watchet were also involved, working from the eastern end of their sector area and searching the River Parrot from Combwich to Steart Point and then along to Hinkley Point.

The team searched the same area again on Monday morning and afternoon, going out for a fourth time on Tuesday night.

The Minehead lifeboat crew had already been called out to two separate emergencies when they offered to help in the search for Dylan, whose body had still not been found as the Free Press went to print.

On what turned out to be one of the busiest nights of the year for emergency services in the Bristol Channel, Minehead's lifeboat was launched for the first time just after 5.30am in response to a call from three Portishead men whose 25-boat had suffered engine failure in mid-channel.

The men were eventually located nearly five miles north of Minehead and their boat was taken in tow to Hinkley Point, where it was handed over to a friend of the men who had arrived to return them to their home port.

But almost as soon as they had started heading back, the Minehead crew was diverted by coastguards to help Weston-super-Mare lifeboatmen hunt for a pair of kayakers who were reported overdue.

The two men - who had lashed the kayaks together to form a makeshift raft with a small outboard engine - were finally located and taken ashore by the Weston crew, with the Minehead lifeboatmen dismantling the raft and returning it to Weston.

It was after refuelling at Weston that the Minehead crew offered to help in the search for Dylan.

The Atlantic 85 lifeboat eventually returned to station at midnight - six and a half hours after leaving.