Couple jump off UK cliff with dead child

A grief-stricken couple has jumped to their deaths from a British cliff with the body of their dead child in a rucksack.

Coastguards found the three bodies at the base of a notorious suicide spot at Beachy Head, in East Sussex on Monday.

His body was found in a rucksack beside his parents' bodies.

A second rucksack found by rescuers nearby was filled with toys. Sussex Police said they were not treating the deaths as suspicious.

"We are investigating exactly what led to this terrible tragedy but a line of inquiry is that the parents were so overcome with grief at their son's fairly sudden death that they decided they could not bear to go on without him," a police source told the Daily Mail.

"He had a short illness and died at home, of natural causes. They seem to have been a normal family struck by awful circumstances."

Eastbourne Coastguard station officer Stuart McNab said they discovered the two rucksacks, one containing the child's body, and the other filled with toys.

"The bag was closed when I got to it. I saw what I thought was a doll's head, but on closer examination it was a child," he told reporters at the scene.

- AAP