Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:01 am
A photograph of a Great White Shark off the south-west coast has been exposed as a fake.
Keeble's fake pictureJaws mania hit the headlines after holidaymaker Kevin Keeble, 52, claimed he had snapped the 'man-eater' near Cornwall.
But the nightclub bouncer has now admitted the sighting was nothing more than a great white lie.
His photograph was actually taken on a holiday to South Africa.
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He told the Newquay Voice newspaper: "I took the picture while I was on a fishing trip in Cape Town and just sent it in as a joke.
"I didn't expect anyone to take be daft enough to take it seriously.
"I can't believe the story went so big in the first place. I didn't even get any money out of it.
"If I'd have made a few quid then maybe I could have gone on another fishing trip to South Africa."
Scene from horror movie JawsExperts had already dismissed the stories as "utter rubbish" and "scaremongering".
Marc Thomas, of Falmouth Coastguard, said: "There has never been a confirmed sighting of a great white off the Cornish coast.
"We get basking sharks and the odd sighting of a porbeagle shark which looks similar fin wise to a great white but they are a lot smaller and completely different.
"They are not the man-eating Jaws. It's utter rubbish. We have never had a shark attack down here and we would urge people to take this with a pinch of salt."