No.1 (oncer) has come to the party with a couple of pics of Somerton Beach with the tide in, showing that anybody reclining by the Somerton Beach sea wall would have been awash, soaked, possibly rolled over by any turbulence however slight.#
PC Moss didn’t twig it, despite being told by Lyons that in his opinion the dead body was the same man he spotted the evening before, and Moss knew the beach well.
Detectives Strangeways, Leane, Brown and Canney didn’t question it either. Nobody did until oncer came along.
# here
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10172750904610008&set=pcb.1973152233448224
and this pic of Somerton Beach at high tide from Jo – taken near the steps.