Man's body found in West Auckland creek

Police are checking missing persons files to try to identify the body of a man found lying face down in a muddy creek in West Auckland yesterday afternoon.

The man was discovered in Henderson Creek, near the Northwestern Motorway, by a member of the public about 3.30pm.

Police said they were not treating the death as suspicious.

The man was thought to be a mental health patient who discharged himself from a nearby psychiatric institution not long before he was thought to have died.

Police said they now had to formally identify the body, which was thought to have been in the creek for a week.

They said a post mortem would be done today to determine how the man died and to formally identify him.

The man is of European descent and in his thirties.