It has been confirmed that the 18-year-old youth found dead in an irrigation canal in San Miguel de Salinas (Alicante) early yesterday morning was a British national who lived in Orihuela. His body was found on the service road that leads to the Villamartín residential estate at 7.45am, around three quarters of an hour after a passer-by had found his damaged moped and reported a possible accident to the emergency services. It appears that the lad lost control, smashed into a roadside crash barrier, catapulting him into the ditch, and was then swept roughly fifteen metres downstream before coming to rest in mud. Prior to the official post-mortem result, it is believed that the young man was knocked unconscious and drowned.
