Newton Abbot police have quashed rumours relating to an alleged sexual assault at a beauty spot in the town at the weekend.

They are also now pursuing an investigation into wasting police time.

At 1am on Sunday morning it was reported to the police that a woman had been sexually attacked at Jetty Marsh, Kingsteignton Road, and forensic teams, crime officers, search teams and detectives were all drafted in.

The area was cordoned off for more than 12 hours while they scoured the nature reserve for evidence.

'We take allegations of this nature extremely seriously and we must treat all reports as genuine from the outset,' said DI Nick Wilden, who has been investigating the case.

'We drafted in a lot of resources in to find out what had happened at Jetty Marsh and we are satisfied this report was a fabrication.

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