Frogmen were called in to search the depths of the freezing waterway at Long Sandall, behind the Rockware Glass factory, after a passerby reported seeing the roof of the car disappearing under water. It took more than two hours to locate the car, a Vauxhall Corsa, but there was no-one inside.

Police believe the vehicle was dumped in the canal by thieves and today condemned them for wasting emergency services' time and putting other peoples' lives at risk.

The alarm was raised at around 8pm when a 999 call was made by someone who saw the roof of a car just before it sank.

Doncaster fire crews were first on the scene and set up lights before water search teams from Edlington and Aston stations arrived to make a search from the surface of the canal.

The South Yorkshire Police helicopter was also called to search further along the canal and the River Don for signs of life.

Crew Manager Andy Eaton, from Edlington station, said: "Our rescue raft was on the canal for about 45 minutes.

"We used a hook to try and find the car and then searched with a camera on a flexible cable which also has lighting but couldn't see anything."

A police underwater search team located the vehicle on the canal bottom.

There was no evidence of anyone still inside or of anyone having forced their way out of it.

The search was abandoned and police believe the car may have been stolen before being driven to the canal bank and pushed into the water a few minutes before its roof was spotted by the passerby.

PC Adie Crawley said: "Obviously this incident took a lot of resources to carry out the search and we would condemn the actions of those responsible for pushing this car into the water, which was clearly not accidental.

"As well as wasting a lot of time it could have endangered the lives of other people."

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