"Apparently there was a scrap between two people just before he left and he tried to break that up. That's how we believe he got kicked out the club as it was misinterpreted. He was trying to stop it and it got misinterpreted and he left in a huff and a puff."

Police were called when the second-year geography student did not come home or turn up for work as a tour guide at Bath Abbey on Friday.

His family, including father Paul, a sales director, mother Sarah, a teacher, and younger brothers, aged 11 and 17, had come from Milton Keynes to Bath to help find him.

But just hours after Ms Comley urged locals to look for him, police confirmed firefighters had found a body in the River Avon at around midday on Saturday.

"It appears to be a tragic accident," a spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police said.

There has not yet been a formal identification, but the spokesman said there was "every indication that it is Henry's body."

Police said there was no indication of foul play and there is no murder investigation underway.

Mr Burke's family has been informed.

It is thought to be at least the eleventh death in the same stretch of water since 2009 - around half of them students on nights out.