While police officers and family members of Mathew Scott were searching for the missing man, his friend Jamie Russell knew the terrible truth - that he was laying dead under a blanket in his flat. When the body was finally discovered it was impossible to ascertain a cause of death, and due to the state of the body Mr Scott's family were unable to see him.
Russell was subsequently charged with the rarely-used common law offence of preventing a decent and lawful burial, and jailed for two years. Police said given the circumstances of the incident the decision was made to prosecute the defendant - partly to deter others from doing something similar in the future.
READ MORE: Get the latest court cases sent to your email inbox with our Crime & Punishment newsletter
Mr Scott was reported as missing on June 9 last year, prompting a police search of his hometown of Neath. A trawl of CCTV footage from the town centre showed he had left home on June 4 but there were no further sightings of the 42-year-old on the footage. Officers then tracked down and spoke to known associates of the missing man, and one reported seeing him in company with an unknown male near the William Hill bookmakers on Windsor Road - though he was uncertain of the exact date, he thought it had been sometime around June 7 to June 9. On June 28 officers went to the bookmakers and staff reported they had experienced an issue with maggots coming through the ceiling from the flat above. When officers entered the flat - which was occupied by Russell - they found the body of the missing man under a blanket on a mattress in the bedroom. Russell had attempted to mask the smell from the body by placing a rolled up T-shirt against the bottom of the bedroom door, and lighting candles.
South Wales Police detective inspector Carl Price said: "From very early on in the investigation there was no evidence that Russell was responsible for the death. It was clear the body of Mr Scott had been there for a significant period of time, and while Russell may not have had a legal obligation to report the body there was a moral obligation. Mr Scott was a well-known character in Neath town centre, and it is very unlikely Russell did not know he was missing and that people were looking for him and his family were frantic. Because of Russell's actions Mr Scott had no dignity in death and his family were unable to grieve for him properly and see the body in the chapel of rest.
"The Crown Prosecution Service saw the seriousness of the situation and was very much onboard with our investigation from the start. Though there were significant financial implications, we decided to go down the route of forensic entomology."
When an animal dies its body starts to decompose, a natural which produces liquids and gases - the smells emitted at the various stages of decay attract different kinds of insects which arrive to feed and lay their eggs. By examining the resulting maggots - maggots are the larvae stage of flies - an expert can work out roughly when the eggs had been laid and therefore had long ago the death occurred. This was the kind of evidence to which police in Neath turned in order to help establish a timeline in Mr Scott's disappearance and death.
Detective inspector Price said the force's crime scene officers recovered maggots from the flat and shipped them to entomological specialists for examination. Police then placed temperature monitoring equipment in Russell's flat which they checked regularly over the following says - this information was passed to the entomologists to help them make their assessment of the development of the larvae. The experts determined that the larvae had been present in Mr Scott's body as early as June 10.
The detective said: "The entomological evidence was part of the picture we gathered. We combined that with CCTV evidence - we carried out an extensive trawl through CCTV footage in the town centre and there was no evidence of Mr Scott out and about in the days following his disappearance - and witness evidence from people who knew Mr Scott to establish a timeline. A post mortem was unable to identify a cause of death but we are confident Mr Scott died shortly after his disappearance.
"This was a very unusual case. Given the circumstances, the length of time Russell said nothing while likely knowing Mr Scott was missing and people were looking for him, and the impact on Mr Scott's family we felt it was right to charge. We also wanted the prosecution to be a deterrent to others."
Jamie Malcolm Martin Russell, aged 45, now of St John's Terrace, Neath Abbey, Neath, was sentenced at Swansea Crown Court to two years in prison after pleading guilty to preventing a lawful and decent burial contrary to common law. Advocate John Allchurch, for Russell, told the court the defendant had "stuck his head in the sand" after the death of Mr Scott, and was "devastated" about what had happened and felt grief and sadness at the loss of this friend.
Sending the defendant to prison Judge Huw Rees said because of Russell's inactions the family of Mr Scott had been left not knowing what had happened, and he said the defendant had "delayed their ability to grieve properly and prolonged the agony of waiting for news about their loved one". The judge said Mr Scott himself had not received the dignity he deserved in death, and the offending was so serious only immediate custody was appropriate.
Russell will serve up to half the sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
