A Great White shark hunting off England's coast?

A tourist has filmed what experts said could well be a great white shark 180 metres from a beach off England's south-west coast.

The huge sharks - which can reach up to six metres long and weigh 2,250 kilograms - are not native to the country's cool waters.

But in a front page story headlined "Great White Shark Off UK", holidaymaker Nick Fletcher told The Sun tabloid how he saw "the 12-foot maneater" while he was videoing dolphins near the town of St Ives in Cornwall.

The paper dubbed the shark the "Cornish Jaws".

After seeing the footage of it following the dolphins and crashing out of the water, Richard Peirce, chairman of the Shark Trust, said: "It clearly has a white belly like a Great White.

"And something about the way it breaches - twisting as it leaps out of the water - also suggests it is. I'm very excited at the prospect."

Oliver Crimmen, fish curator at London's Natural History Museum, added: "It's definitely predatory and definitely big. I can't rule out a Great White."