MATTHEW HARVEY’S oxygen regulator was traced to a lock-up store in Poole yesterday. The ‘missing’ diver claimed on Wednesday that he had been forced to jettison his tank and had lost his regulator after being hit by a boat at Fermain Bay on Saturday.

But Lok’nStore centre manager Nicola Allmond said yesterday that Mr Harvey had a secure box in the store with diving equipment in it.

Box holders must sign in to gain access and Mr Harvey had turned up at 11am on Sunday.

‘He had a great big blue bag and he told the girls that it was his diving gear,’ she said.

‘He wasn’t the slightest bit wet and he didn’t have a head injury.’

Mr Harvey deposited the bag and left. He returned to the store at 8.30am on Monday but left without the bag.

‘We don’t know why he came back but the bag is still here and we can see the regulators over the top,’ said Ms Allmond.

‘We’d seen on TV news that somebody was missing but we didn’t realise it was Mr Harvey until we had a call from the police.’

The report added weight to speculation that the disappearance was planned and not the result of panic.

Mr Harvey was not at home yesterday and the main activity outside his home at St John’s Road, St Peter Port, involved the national press.

National newspapers all carried stories of the latest developments in the case and multiple media sources, national and international, converged on the island.

Sunday Times journalist John Kirk said any disappearance or remarkable reappearance made a good read.

‘Then there’s the cost of the search – some say it could be £250,000,’ he said.

‘They are a good-looking young couple – she’s good looking – and people will want to know why he did it. It’s got the intrigue factor.’

Other national newspapers suggested the search cost more like £10,000.

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Radio Two’s Jeremy Vine featured the incident on his lunchtime programme.

Harbour master and search coordinator Captain Peter Gill refused to speculate on costs.

‘All of our search and rescue assets, such as CIAS and RNLI, are publicly-funded charities and others, like the Brecqhou helicopter and Buzz White with his boat, are privately owned,’ he said.

‘They make them available out of the kindness of their hearts and don’t charge us.’

He said reports that resources from the search for a French fisherman missing 25 miles north-west of Guernsey, who drowned, had been diverted to look for Mr Harvey were wrong.

Guernsey assets that had taken part in that search, the lifeboat Spirit of Guernsey and the CIAS aircraft Lions’ Pride, had been stood down from the French search the day before and it had not been conducted from the island.

Channel Islands Air Search chief officer Roger Dadd said his organisation would not be pursuing a compensation claim against Mr Harvey, as it would go against the charity’s principles.

He would not speak directly about Mr Harvey as the organisation had a policy not to make comments that would be adverse to a person to whom the service was being provided.

‘The reason for this is that, in common with the RNLI and other search and rescue services, we do everything we can to encourage people to call for help as early as possible and before matters get too difficult or dangerous,’ he said.

‘If we were to make comments which were critical or sent out bills, that would run totally counter to our primary objective.’

Peter Sarl, director of Heritage Services for the States and Mr Harvey’s boss, said yesterday that he had been instructed by his political board not to comment on questions about Mr Harvey’s future in his job.

The police inquiry continued yesterday into how a man who claimed to have been lost at sea or stuck on rocks for more than two days had spent most of that time in England.

Inspector Trevor Coleman would not say who had made the call that started the huge search and rescue operation late on Saturday afternoon.

A spokeswoman for the Poole Hospital NHS Trust would neither confirm nor deny a report that Mr Harvey had tried to get himself admitted there last weekend but had been refused. She said such incidents would be subject to patient confidentiality.