HE took a train from London to Manchester, climbed a 1,500ft peak on a
freezing evening, swallowed rat poison then lay down and died.
And more than three months later police still have absolutely no idea who he
is.
When the body of the pensioner was found lying face-up by a track on December
12 it sparked one of the most mysterious missing person cases detectives in
Britain have ever faced.
The man had no wallet, no mobile phone and nothing to identify him. Baffled
mortuary staff nicknamed him Neil Dovestone after the area of Saddleworth
Moor where he was found.
Detective Sergeant John Coleman, who has led the three-month investigation for
Greater Manchester Police, said: “Our mission is to tell a loved one that
the gentleman has passed on.
“There are up to a thousand folk missing in the UK and sadly no one knows
where they have gone.
“Here, we have a man’s body and we are building his profile without having one
single clue as to his name or where he’s from.”
The riddle began 24 hours previously and 200 miles south when “Mr Dovestone”
bought a £4.80 single ticket and boarded a train at Ealing Broadway station
in West London around 9am on December 11.
Smartly dressed in a white shirt, blue corduroy trousers, blue jumper, brown
jacket and freshly polished, black slip-on shoes, he took around 31 minutes
to reach Euston station.
There he paid £81.50 cash for a return ticket to Manchester Piccadilly and
caught the 10am service, arriving at 12.05pm.
CCTV cameras caught him milling between shops at the station for 53 minutes,
during which time cops believe he bought something to eat and spent around
four minutes at an inquiry counter. What he was asking about has not been
established.
He finally left the station on foot at 1.03pm.
There the trail goes cold until around 2pm, when he strolled into The Clarence
pub in Greenfield, Saddleworth, 11 miles away.
The pub is a popular watering hole for tourists and walkers exploring the
surrounding trails and peaks.
Landlord Mel Robinson, 58, recalled: “The pub was quiet when the man walked
in. He asked me ‘The way to the mountains’. He didn’t ask for anything
specific or a place name.
“I accompanied him to the door and directed him to Dovestone, via the route at
Fletchers Mill. I gave him the directions twice.”
Mr Robinson, a father of three, added: “He did not speak with an accent. He
just simply asked the way. He didn’t even have a drink.”
The man set off despite the bad weather and his smart black shoes. It was
raining hard that afternoon, the sun set at 3.48pm and temperatures dropped
overnight to below freezing.
RSPB warden staff drove past a man around a mile up Chew Track at about
4.30pm. The peak of the trail overlooks the moor where child murderers Ian
Brady and Myra Hindley buried their victims in the Sixties.
The following day a cyclist discovered the man’s body. He was on his back on a
steep gradient by the side of a single-file track at 10.50am — almost 21
hours after he left the pub.
The emergency services and a mountain rescue team were dispatched after
reports of a man apparently having suffered a heart attack.
Rick Beswick, a 29-year-old stalwart of the Oldham mountain rescue team, was
one of the first on the scene.
He said: “When we were first called to the scene we were told the man had had
a cardiac arrest. Tragically we see lots of people who die in incidents in
the countryside.”
After the call came in, quietly spoken Det Sgt Coleman, a policeman for 19
years, thought the case would be straightforward to solve.
Yet the more he investigated, the more the mystery on Saddleworth Moor
began to deepen. Heart-breakingly, more than 40 anxious families have
already contacted him, in vain, asking if Mr Dovestone is their missing
relative.
The only possessions found on the man were three rail tickets, £130 in £10
notes — and an empty plastic screw top bottle labelled in English and Arabic
as containing 100 tablets of thyroid-balancing tablets.
No credit cards. No keys. No bus pass or rail card. No watch.
His jacket, shirt, jersey trousers and shoes were from high street chain
stores and could have been bought almost anywhere in Britain.
And in the weeks and months that have followed, despite a lot of publicity, no
one has come forward with a single shred of information.
Officers have made some progress. Earlier this week The Sun revealed they had
identified the poison he took as strychnine. Used as rat poison, it is only
sold under strict licence.
But they are still looking for a final breakthrough — which could come in the
shape of a broken leg.
The man has a 4in metal plate screwed into his left femur, which was fitted in
Pakistan between 2001 and 2015. But unlike the NHS, Pakistan does not number
the plates and consequently Det Sgt Coleman’s team have asked staff at the
High Commission in Pakistan and Interpol for assistance.
The Sun understands the number of possible patients is 1,750 after right leg
ops and women are discounted.
Among the theories is that the man was a Pakistani national injured in the
country, he had dual nationality or he was a British national who was in
Pakistan when he suffered the injury needing the plate.
A fourth idea is he was a “health tourist” who travelled to Pakistan for the
operation because it was cheaper.
Police have also not yet ruled out a link to an horrific plane crash in 1949
when a holiday DC-3 ploughed into hills in the other side of Dovestone
valley, leaving 24 dead.
But in interviews, nothing has so far revealed a single clue from relatives of
those who died or survived.
There had been conjecture that the mystery man might have been one of the
eight survivors, and was returning to visit the crash site.
But that theory was dashed after the last-living survivor of the ill-fated
British European Airways flight — academic Professor Stephen Evans — came
forward alive and well.
The fact the man travelled north without ID could mean he did not want to be
found. Was he hiding a guilty secret or a personal tragedy?
Was he returning to Britain to die and if so, why Saddleworth Moor?
READ MORE:
Dad’s
face melted ‘in road rage acid attack after he blocked stranger’s car’
Top
Gear Mustang misses Cenotaph by inches as it burns up Whitehall in exclusive
Sun video
Locals are equally bemused.
Mandy Gorey, 52, sub postmistress at Greenfield for 14 years, said: “Even if
he was from abroad someone must be missing him.
“But we can’t help but think he knew what he was doing.” Uppermill village
baker Graham Scholes, 52, added: “You don’t go up hills and make a journey
to a place like this for nothing. He’s gone there for a reason.”
Chairman of the local parish council, Neil Allsopp, said: “If it wasn’t so sad
it would be like something from a John Le Carre novel.
“The hardest thing to reconcile is that no one has come forward to identify
him.”
Until that happens, the bulging grey box file on Det Sgt Coleman’s desk that
holds everything on Mr Dovestone’s last hours on earth still remains open.
— IF you know the man’s identity please call the Greater Manchester Police on
0161 872 5050 or The Sun on 020 7782 4100.
Final resting place
SADDLEWORTH Moor gained a sinister name in the Sixties after Ian Brady and
Myra Hindley buried four of their five victims there.
The Moors Murderers snatched children in Greater Manchester between 1963 and
1965 and sexually abused, tortured and killed them.
In 1965 the bodies of Lesley Ann Downey, ten, and John Kilbride, 12, were
found. In 1987 the body of Pauline Reade, 16, was finally discovered nearby.
Keith Bennett, 12, has never been found but his body is believed to be buried
on the same moor.