A woman who reported her husband missing found him three hours later in a car park waiting to pick her up from a shopping trip.

Police started to search for the 74-year-old Rayleigh man as his wife was concerned for his safety.

The mishap unfolded after the man dropped his wife off at the Homebase DIY store, Rayleigh Weir, at 11.30am yesterday.

She went inside to do some shopping, agreeing to meet her husband outside. When she finished she left the store and went to search for her husband.

Not being able to find him, she called a taxi and made her way back home, thinking they had got their wires crossed and she would meet him there.

Two hours later there was still no sign of him and the worried woman called the police as she was concerned for her husband's health because he had recently been quite ill.

Rayleigh police started to hunt for him and tracked him down in the Homebase store car park, in his Rover car, still waiting patiently for his wife after three hours.

Chief Insp Steve Bottrill, of Rayleigh police, said: "We found the man in the car park at 2.40pm where he had he had been waiting for his wife the whole time."

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