A 14-year-old boy has died after going missing in a cave on a school trip in the Yorkshire Dales.

Joseph Lister, of Steeton, near Tadcaster was brought out of the Manchester Hole cave system in Upper Nidderdale after a search by rescuers on Monday afternoon. The Tadcaster Grammar School pupil was brought out of the Manchester Hole cave system in Upper Nidderdale after a search by rescuers on Monday afternoon.

The Tadcaster Grammer School was treated at the scene but later died at Harrogate District Hospital.

The teenager was among a group of 100 students on the first day of a week-long visit to the Bewerley Park Centre run by the county council.

The boy is believed to have gone missing from a party of 10 other pupils, boys and girls, and the alarm was raised when he could not be found.

Tadcaster Grammar School head teacher Geoff Mitchell said: "There is a tremendous sense of grief throughout the whole school."

All the pupils on the trip returned to Tadcaster on Monday evening and have been offered counselling, a county council spokesman said.

Investigations have been launched by North Yorkshire Police, the council and the Health and Safety Executive to establish the chain of events which led to the tragedy.

The council spokesman said the cave the children were in is used by instructors to give a basic introduction to caving.

Manchester Hole adjoins Goyden Pot in the stream bed of the River Nidd one-and-a-half miles north of Lofthouse, near Pateley Bridge.

Although the river level was high after recent heavy rain, the spokesman said: "They would not have gone in if it had not been safe to do so."