Last sighting of lacking Dr Michael Mosley proven on CCTV

New CCTV footage appears to show missing health guru Michael Mosley just half an hour after he left his wife at a beach on a Greek holiday island – as sniffer dogs and divers joined the search for him in 38C heat. 

The Mail columnist left his wife Dr Claire Bailey at the picturesque St Nikolas Beach at around 1.30pm on Wednesday after telling her and their friends he was walking back to the port where they were staying.

Now an image has been released by police that appears to show Dr Mosley resting an umbrella on his shoulder while dressed in a dark shirt and a cap.  

The route the doctor took is around three miles and should have taken no more than an hour and although not particularly challenging the initial part from St Nikolas involves a climb of around 100 steps to a high point of around 50 metres (150ft).

It then drops down into the village of Pedi and although there is a small drop around midway it would be difficult to slip as there are rocks midway down which would stop someone falling into the sea.

Dr Mosley’s disappearance has shocked locals, who say the route he took is regularly used by tourists and ‘not rugged or too dangerous‘.

Antonis, who has lived on Symi all their lives, said Dr Mosley’s disappearance is ‘crazy’. 

He told BBC News: ‘The place is very small. A little kid can’t get lost here. How does a man get lost?’

Another resident, Dawn –  who is a friend of the person the doctor was staying with – said the route was ‘not overly rugged or something that would be seen as too dangerous.

‘It’s something that tourists do everyday,’ she told BBC Radio 5 Live, adding the situation is ‘worrying’ given how many people take the route.

‘Hopefully, obviously, he’ll be found as soon as possible,’ she said.

Police are working on the theory that the medic may have been bitten by a snake or somehow became disoriented as temperatures were around 35C at the time he vanished.

Dr Mosley and his wife landed on the 25-square-mile island on Tuesday and were due to stay for a week with a couple who have a house in Symi Town.

The two couples took a boat-taxi from Symi Port up the coast on Wednesday morning. They stopped at St Nikolas beach where the diet doctor, a father of four, went for a swim in the sea before deciding to walk the 2.2 miles back home at 1.30pm.

He had left his phone at their friends’ home, and when Dr Bailey and the couple returned to the property, they found that Dr Mosley had not returned and his mobile was where he left it.

The understanding, a senior police official said, was that he would trek to Pedi and take the bus from there to Symi’s capital, near where the couple was staying. Search crews were retracing the entire path, also speaking to bus drivers to trace his path.

The official said: ‘It is baffling, but we have had instances of similar disappearances on nearby islands where we scoured trails again and again only to find the person two and three days later. That’s what we are doing.’

After the alarm was raised, a woman reported seeing Dr Mosley walking past a bus stop in Pedi, halfway between St Nikolas beach and Symi Town. There were also claims he was seen talking to someone.

If confirmed, the sighting would indicate he made it past the most perilous coastal segment of the route. But officers could not find any images of the doctor on the limited CCTV in the area.

There are several rocky outcrops along the route to Pedi and it was feared Dr Mosley could have fallen into the sea.

Once past the small coastal town of Pedi, the route to his holiday home involves main roads lined with houses.

Police are working on the theory the doctor have been bitten by a snake or somehow became disoriented as temperatures were around 35C when he vanished.

A woman in Pedi reported seeing someone matching Dr Mosley’s description at around 2.30pm on Wednesday by a bus stop and asking for directions and although initially this was taken as a confirmed sighting there are no doubts over it.

A rescue official in Symi told MailOnline: ‘This woman said she saw him by the bus stop and she recognised him and at first we thought it was possible.

‘The area was searched extensively with drones and dogs and a helicopter but we found nothing and now we are not so sure it was him.

‘It is very strange and we just don’t know where he is but we think the heat may have played a part as it was very hot that day.’

MailOnline can also reveal that Dr Bailey was taken to a restaurant in Pedi after the owners checked their CCTV footage and spotted a man who bore a remarkable resemblance to the health guru.

Police and Dr Bailey rushed to the Katsaras restaurant to look at the footage and despite the amazing similarity it was ruled out after she said it was not her husband.

The owner, who declined to be named, showed MailOnline the footage but refused to release it and the resemblance was uncanny.

The man in the footage was dressed identically as when Dr Mosley vanished and wearing a blue shirt, sunglasses and baseball cap and carrying a rucksack.

He was walking with a woman at around 4.30pm along the seafront at Pedi, almost three hours after Dr Mosley was last seen.

However in the image shown to MailOnline shorts appeared to be different but other than that the resemblance – in dress and appearance – was striking.

The owner said: ‘When we heard the man was missing we checked the CCTV and saw this guy walking past.

‘At first we thought ‘Wow! It’s him’ and you can see he looks very similar so we called the police and they came with his wife to have a look.

‘But she said it wasn’t him – even though he is wearing the same blue shirt, has a baseball, cap sunglasses and rucksack. It’s very strange as the resemblance is definitely there.

‘From St Nikolas to here is not that difficult and it should only take 15 minutes at the most but it’s a mystery how he could have disappeared. ‘

An official also told MailOnline that a possible sighting of Dr Mosley in a cafe at Panormitis in the south of Symi around 30 minutes away had been ruled out.

He said: ‘When we heard about this we woke the guy up at midnight on Thursday and asked him to check the CCTV.

‘I sent him a picture of the man and said he was supposed to have been there around 6pm on Wednesday evening but he checked all the footage and found someone who was dressed in blue but he was much younger.’

Local officials described the temperature on the island as ‘unbearable’ on the day the health medical expert went missing. 

A helicopter was also deployed to assist the search at around 7pm local time (5pm BST) yesterday. 

Dr Mosley, known for popularising the 5:2 diet and for his appearances on The One Show and This Morning, is reported to have vanished after setting off on a walk to the centre of the island on Wednesday.

A statement from local police said officers were informed about the ‘disappearance of the 67-year-old British national on the island’ on Wednesday.

Police then asked for assistance from the Greek fire service, with six firefighters, a vehicle and a drone team arriving from Rhodes at about 2pm (12pm BST) yesterday. 

The rescue operation is said to be focusing on the Pedi area of the island after a woman reported seeing him there on Wednesday.

Mayor of Symi Eleftherios Papakalodoukas said firefighters had told him they believed it was ‘impossible’ Mosley was still there.

He told the BBC: ‘It is a very small, controlled area, full of people. So, if something happened to him there, we would have found him by now.’

A woman who gave her name only as Irini, and who works at Kamares coffee shop on Pedi Beach, said yesterday: ‘They came, the police, with the coast police and firemen, and the rescue team, to carry out the investigation, but I don’t think that anything has been found yet.’

Another woman in the area said Mosley’s disappearance was ‘strange’ as the path he was thought to be on is ‘clear’.

She said: ‘It’s a quiet place… if you see the map of the area it’s a clear path, it’s nothing dangerous, many people go every day, every few minutes, that’s the reason it’s very strange because it’s a clear path.’

A friend of the person Mosley was staying with said she was struggling to understand how anyone could get lost on the part of the island he was believed to be on.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live’s Drive programme, she said: ‘It’s a road that sort of heads over the mountain side but it’s been recently widened and there is only one route, so it’s not possible to lose your way.

‘So, it is probably a 20-minute walk down the side of the mountain, but it’s not overly rugged or something that would be seen to be too dangerous, it’s something that tourists do every day in the summer.

‘I’m having trouble understanding how you could get lost.’

A local Facebook group said Mosley went for a walk from St Nikolas Beach at about 1.30pm Greek time on Wednesday.

The broadcaster fronted the Channel 4 show Michael Mosley: Who Made Britain Fat? and was part of the BBC series Trust Me, I’m A Doctor.

He lived with tapeworms in his gut for six weeks for the documentary Infested! Living With Parasites on BBC Four.

Mosley received an Emmy nod for BBC science documentary The Human Face, presented by John Cleese and featuring a raft of famous faces, including Elizabeth Hurley, Pierce Brosnan and Sir David Attenborough.

Trust Me I’m A Doctor star Saleyha Ahsan wrote on social media that the news of Dr Mosley’s disappearance was ‘shocking’ and that she was hoping Mosley would be ‘found safe’.

‘I literally feel sick with worry,’ Ahsan added. ‘Don’t even know what to say.’

Mosley has four children with his wife Clare Bailey Mosley, also a doctor, author and health columnist, who wrote the recipe book Fast 800 Easy.

The couple, who have hosted theatre show tours together, recently attended the Hay Festival, where Mosley presented a special edition of his Radio 4 series and podcast Just One Thing.

Greek police spokesman Constantina Dimoglidou told the Mail: ‘Any and every attempt to track him down has not produced any result. 

‘He may have slipped, tripped, fallen, even been bitten by a snake, remaining injured somewhere.

‘There is just no trace of him. None whatsoever. And that means that for us at least, every potential scenario is open and being investigated.’

Symi mayor Lefteris Papakalodoukas said the area where the presenter went missing was considered ‘difficult as it is quite rocky’. 

‘He came back from the beach, some people saw him but then his tracks were lost,’ he said, adding that Dr Mosley ‘wanted to walk back from the beach, but that’s a distance of about an hour and a half and there are shortcuts he may have taken’.

Mr Papakalodoukas added: ‘The British broadcaster has come for holiday with his wife and is being hosted by a couple of their friends on our island. We know he had gone for a swim… but because he likes hiking and the area, he (decided he) would walk back.

‘Some witnesses said he was seen returning to Pedi and talking to another person. All of these are testimonies that are being investigated at the moment.’

Mr Papakalodoukas told the local paper, Kathimerini, that the high temperatures on the island on Wednesday were ‘unbearable’ and that ‘one could easily faint in such conditions’.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We are supporting the family of a British man who is missing in Greece and are in contact with the local authorities.’

The bestselling author renowned for his diet advice 

By Andy Jehring 

Dr Michael Mosley is one of Britain’s most well-known doctors, who rose to fame with television appearances and a string of best-selling diet books.

Born in Calcutta, India, he attended boarding school in England before reading PPE at Oxford. Dr Mosley tried his hand working as an investment banker before retraining as a doctor.

He studied medicine at the Royal Free Hospital in London before leaving to join the BBC as a trainee assistant producer.

Dr Mosley made a string of science and history documentaries over 25 years, rising to become a presenter and an executive producer at the corporation.

In his journalistic career he has worked alongside the likes of John Cleese, Jeremy Clarkson, Professor Robert Winston and Sir David Attenborough.

He devised and was executive producer on three of the most popular science and history programmes of the past decade: Pompeii – The Last Day, Supervolcano and Krakatoa.

He is also working as a presenter on Trust Me, I’m A Doctor on BBC 2. Alongside his screen work, Dr Mosley is well known for his dietary advice after publishing bestselling plans including The Fast 800 and the 5:2 Diet.

He is one of the leading advocates of intermittent fasting, low carbohydrate and ketogenic diets.

The diet doctor has also published a book on using diet to improve sleep, called Fast Asleep, after revealing he suffered from chronic insomnia.

Dr Mosley regularly appears on his podcast Just One Thing as well as the BBC’s The One Show.

His latest book, The 8-week Blood Sugar Diet, was published in December 2015 and became an international bestseller.

He has won numerous awards, including being named Medical Journalist of the Year by the British Medical Association in 1995.

As well as having a column in the Daily Mail, Dr Mosley writes for The Mail on Sunday, The Times and The Independent. He is a regular columnist for Focus magazine and Eureka.

He married Clare Bailey in 1987, after meeting in medical school, and they have four children together. 

Dr Mosley and his wife, who is also a Mail columnist, have just completed a nationwide tour together called: ‘Eat well, sleep better, live longer.’