Police have launched a murder inquiry after human remains found in a Nottinghamshire field were identified as those of a miner who vanished after a night at a pub 56 years ago.
A member of the public found the remains in farmland in Sutton-in-Ashfield in April, and Nottinghamshire police launched an appeal for information after a postmortem found that the person had been killed.
The bones have been identified as belonging to Alfred Swinscoe, who was 54 when he went missing in January 1967 after last being seen outside a pub in his home village of Pinxton, Derbyshire.
Swinscoe’s grandson Russell Lowbridge, 60, contacted police as the skeleton was found near to where he went missing and matched Swinscoe’s height of 5ft 5in.
He also said a pair of socks found with the remains “brought back memories of my childhood and I had a distinct feeling I had seen them somewhere before”.
At a press conference on Thursday, the family appealed for anyone with information about the circumstances of Swinscoe’s death to come forward.
“This has been a mystery that has haunted our family for decades,” Lowbridge said. “Whoever did this robbed generations of a grandfather and great-grandfather, and left six children without a father. While we might be able to give my grandfather the proper funeral he deserves, we still don’t have the answers we desperately need.”
He said his uncle Gary, who died in November 2012, was “tormented” by his father’s disappearance as he was with him at the pub on the night he vanished, when Swinscoe said he was going to use the outside toilet at about 10.30pm.
“He went to his grave never knowing what happened to his dad,” Lowbridge said. “He just remembers his dad giving him a 10-bob note in the Pinxton Miners Arms that night, telling him to get a round and then never ever seeing him again.”
Lowbridge’s mother, Julie Swinscoe, now 82, was 25 at the time her father went missing. “I remember coming home one day from work and people saying they couldn’t find Dad,” she said. “We all thought it was very mysterious, but we thought he would turn up. It does make you wonder how we did cope through all these years, because it has always stayed with us as a family. Where did Dad go?”
She said she “practically went hysterical” when the remains were found to belong to her father. “I said: ‘He can’t have lain in that field for 56 years and no one could find him until now.’ It’s just so horrible. I would like to think I could die knowing the truth. Someone killed my dad and I want to know why. I need to know why.”
Described by his family as a “hard-working and respected man”, Swinscoe was born and raised in the pit village of Pinxton and worked at Langton colliery from the age of 14.
He was known as the “champion pigeon man of Pinxton” due to his love of pigeon racing, which he enjoyed along with his son Gary, alongside whom the family plan to bury him.
Assistant Chief Constable Rob Griffin said: “I cannot imagine how distressing this must have been for Alfred’s family, who have been waiting 56 years for answers. We know that Alfred was murdered. Despite this being a crime that happened more than 50 years ago, this will not stop us from using all the investigative skills at our disposal to find those responsible.”
Nottinghamshire police have appealed for anyone who knew Swinscoe or who drank at the Pinxton Miners Arms at the time to contact them. “As time passes, so do loyalties, and we hope that people who may have had information at the time about his disappearance will come forward now,” Griffin said.
