PHUKET: A man whose body was found on a Phuket beach with severe wounds to his ears and nose probably died in a fall then was beaten by waves against the rocks, police believe.

The man was Santi Jandang, 36, whose wife Jura went to police and subsequently identified her husband from photographs.

She said her husband often went alone to a remote part of Sirinath National Park, north of Nai Yang beach, where he would spend the entire night fishing for squid before returning home in the morning.

Initially, police feared he had been murdered. However, doctors at Thalang Hospital say that there were no clean-cut knife wounds where his nose and ears had been removed.

This led them to conclude he had been chewed by fish or crabs, probably after slipping and hitting his head on the slippery rocks.

His body, dressed only in a pair of black briefs, was found washed up on a beach within the Sirinath National Park on Sunday morning.

His wife went to police that evening, Lieutenant Prakorb Boonkhawn from Tachatchai Police Station told Phuketwan .

She told police her husband had no enemies and therefore there was no motive for his murder.