A beach-goer spotted a small shark attempting to get onto the shore before gently nudging him back into the water.

A video of the creature and a man trying to help it has been posted on social media along with the caption: “Minster Beach today and this fish – approximately one metre long – decided he wanted to lay on the beach like other people were. Luckily a man stood in and told the fish ‘you’re not coming in’.”

The fish, which is believed to be a starry smooth-hound, was spotted in very shallow waters on Sheppey on Friday.

Its body appears to be resting on the seabed as small waves lap past its body.

In slow-motion fottage, the sandle-wearing man can then be seen gently grasping the shark and encouraging it to move away from the beach.

Starry smooth-hounds are commonly found swimming in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.

They can grow to be almost a metre-and-a-half in length, have a long lean build, and a slighlty rounded snout.

The fish primarily feeds on crustaceans, like crabs and lobsters and poses minimal threat to humans.

However, in 2017 a close cousin of the starry smooth-hounds – the smooth hound – carried out one of the only recorded shark attack on a human in British waters.

A 30-year-old teacher sufferred a bruised leg and cuts to his hands after an encounter with a smooth hound off the coast of Bantham beach, south Devon.

Asked in the comments of the post if the shark eventually swam away, the Facebook user who posted the video said: “it kept beaching for quite awhile, the man continued and eventually swam around about 5mtr away, when I left it was still swimming, so hopefully it survived.”