CHILDREN at a Macclesfield school are bracing themselves for news that a body discovered in a river in Leeds could be that of popular teacher Peter Turns.

Mr Turns, aged 27, who teaches IT at Fallibroome High, has not been seen since April 9 when he was involved in an argument after standing on the bonnet of a car outside a nightclub in Leeds.

He was last spotted running off towards the River Aire.

Yesterday police frogmen pulled a body from the river close to Crown Point Bridge after being alerted to it by a member of the public. The body is not expected to be formally identified until today, when a post mortem will be carried out. But Peter's family and children at the school have been told about the discovery.

Sympathy

Headteacher Peter Rubery informed pupils of the situation as they returned from the Easter break but stressed that there had been no positive identification of the body.

A spokesman for the local education authority Cheshire County Council said: "While uncertainty still exists all we can do is express our sympathy and understanding to the family, friends and colleagues of the missing man at this most difficult and trying of times."

Peter's friend Mark Hull, aged 24, said: "This is obviously very sad news that a body has turned up where he went missing.

"The general consensus has always been that this was not going to have a happy ending."

Peter, of Marple Bridge, had travelled to Leeds from Tyne and Wear for a friend's stag night.