A pair of odd socks helped solve the 56-year mystery of a man who went to the toilet and vanished.
Alfred Swinscoe, 54, disappeared on a cold night in January 1967 sparking a desperate search. It was a mystery so brutal that Russell Lowbridge, Alfred’s grandson, and their family refused to ever mention it – but now there is hope that an answer might finally come their way.
An investigation was launched in April 2021 after his remains were found in a field in Sutton-in-Ashfield. He was found buried on farmland more than 50 years after he had given his son Gary 10 bob for last orders one Friday night. As reported by the Mirror, he then popped to the outside toilet of his local pub and vanished into thin air.
Now coroner Nathanael Hartley has found the cause of death was “multiple traumatic injuries”. He said Mr Swinscoe had suffered a “sustained attack” and had injuries in multiple areas, including to his neck. Mr Lowbridge and his brother, Jason Lowbridge, both attended the inquest.
Russell said: “I just can’t understand why anybody would want to do it to him. He was such a nice man and didn’t bother anybody, and from what you’ve told us, it was a wicked murder. This was a horrendous death he went through and nobody deserves that kind of death, let alone Alfred.”
Russell knew growing up that he should never bring up the subject of what had happened to his missing grandfather Alfred. Most thought the proud Derbyshire miner and pigeon racer – nicknamed ‘Sparrow’ and ‘the Champion Pigeon Man of Pinxton’ – recently estranged from his long-suffering wife, had run out on her and their six kids.
Gary, Russell’s uncle and the last person to see Alfred at the Miners’ Arms in Pinxton village, was the only one who refused to believe he would have abandoned his family and never gave up hoping he would see his dad again – right up to the day he died in 2012.
With Gary gone, Russell, 61, who was just four when Alfred disappeared, thought he’d never discover the truth. Then suddenly, while scrolling social media and coming across a police post about a body that had been dug up in a farmer’s field, he recognised one of his long-lost granddad’s odd socks from 56 years earlier.
It was the shock start to a year which has cleared up decades of uncertainty – however it has also left him with questions he fears will never be answered. And with a stalled cold case police inquiry, and the inquest concluded, Russell is now making a last-ditch plea for information before the case is closed forever.
If a farmer hadn’t dug a ditch next to a copse beside his field, in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts, to deter trial bikers from tearing up his land in April last year, the fate of Alfred Swinscoe would still be lost in history.
He called police after human bones and a man’s clothes, buried 6ft under, began to fall from the claws of his digger. Traumatic injuries to the skeleton later showed that the man, who still had pre-decimal coins in his pocket, had been violently murdered.
Russell, who lives a few miles from the field and had driven past it hundreds of times, remembers: “I didn’t pay much attention to begin with, but then police posted a photo of a pair of odd socks and I had this incredible flashback, with the black sock in particular.
“I suddenly remembered as a kid putting on my granddad’s sock and pulling them up so the heel came right up to my knee. I called police and they came to take a DNA swab. That’s when we found out that it really was Alfred. I was shocked and flabbergasted.
“It turns out that he was wearing odd socks on the night. My initial thoughts about that were, ‘poor lad, he’d left his wife and was down on his luck, he was was in lodgings and wasn’t on top of his washing.’ Or maybe that was just one of his feet and he was wearing two socks on each. It was in the middle of winter.”
Russell says he probably wouldn’t have known anything about his granddad if it weren’t for Gary, his closest uncle, with whom he shared a love for pigeon racing – which was also Alfred’s favourite pastime.
He says: “My mother never spoke about him, nor my grandmother, it was only ever Uncle Gary. I think there was some upset amongst the family because he had left home about a year earlier. Alfred could become quite erratic after a few pints and caused quite a few arguments. The others laid it to bed and got on with their lives. But Gary never shut up about him, he would tell stories about him and often say, ‘I wish I knew where my dad was’.
“He told me he would go back to Pinxton and go looking in outbuildings, abandoned buildings, ditches and down old wells, anywhere Alfred could have fell or been put, and he never gave up on it. Even when he got older he would go looking, while he still had the strength.
“He always thought something sinister had happened. He was just an ordinary simple man. He had no passport, driving licence or car. He couldn’t have started a new life somewhere else.
“Gary would write to the Salvation Army but they never found any trace of Alfred. Later in life, he enlisted solicitors to look for his death certificate, but they never found anything either. He even paid a private investigator, but all to no avail and he took it all to his deathbed.
“When Uncle Gary died my first thoughts were, ‘Oh dear, what happens now? We’ll never find out what really happened.’ When I heard about the body I knew I had to get in touch, even if the rest of the family didn’t want to. I had to do it for Uncle Gary.”
Aged 14, Alfred had started working at Langton Colliery in Ashfield, rising to become a ’cutter’ who operated machinery cutting out large chunks of coal from the coal face.
Although Alfred had split a year earlier from his wife Caroline, who had moved to nearby Sutton-in-Ashfield with their children and grandchildren, including Russell and his mother Julie, Gary, then 30, had continued to see him, often meeting up for a drink at the Miners’ Arms.
On Friday, January 27, 1967, it was pay day at the pit, according to Russell. He said: “Gary had gone out with a mate that night and met up with granddad at the pub. He remembers his dad giving him 10 bob to get the last round, and then glancing round and seeing him going out. He assumed he was going to the outside toilets and would be right back.
“The next morning, the man he’d been lodging with came round our house in Ashfield looking for him, because he hadn’t come home that night and it was the day he had to pay his board. He thought he’d run away to get out of paying.”
But everyone’s theories devised over the next five decades were blown apart last year by scientific examination of his remains.
Russell says: “He was murdered quite viciously. There was blunt force trauma to the head and sharp force trauma to the jaw lines, so it might have been the edge of a spade, and possibly stabbing afterwards.
“They said he fought for his life. There were signs of a broken hand, as if he’d given somebody a good right hook. And they found trauma to his ribs and his back, as if he’d been grappling with someone and they’d been punching him in the ribs.
“Police believe he’d been left somewhere for a week or more before they buried him, because there were fingers and ribs missing as if he’d been ravaged by foxes and badgers. Whoever killed him
The copse where Alfred’s body was found was a known site for gay liaisons in the 60s – when homosexuality was illegal.
“Did they bury him there because they knew no-one would have dared report anything suspicious to the police? Or had grandad found out that the man who killed him was gay and he was killed so he couldn’t tell?” ponders Russell.
“The police also believe that whoever did it had a car, because of the distance to the field, and there weren’t a lot of cars on the road at that time. Did they kill him first, or hoodwink him into taking a ride, then stop somewhere and do the deed?”
Perhaps the biggest blow, however, was finding out who police believe to be the two main suspects. Both deceased, they cannot be named, but Russell is good friends with the grandchildren of both his granddad’s suspected killers. “They are people I have daily contact with. It came as quite a blow actually,” he says.
One of the suspects had a history of violence and theft and was in the Miners’ Arms on the night Alfred disappeared. Some of the injuries found on his body were similar to those he had inflicted on a man he was convicted of assaulting in April 1966, according to police.
Russell says: “My uncle had already suspected one of them. He’d had been in a battle or two with him himself and he’d been in the forces so knew military tactics. He always thought he was the prime suspect and even challenged him many times over the years.
“But I don’t agree with the police about the other one. I can’t bring myself to believe that he was also involved.
“The police traced records and are saying that their dispute was money related. I don’t know why though, as grandad had a well-paid job.”
The family finally laid Alfred to rest in January – on top of son Gary and next to daughter Carol and his wife Caroline, who never remarried – in a Sutton-in-Ashfield cemetery. The funeral was officiated by Stephen Blakeley, who played PC Younger in the TV series Heartbeat and now works as a celebrity celebrant.
Russell says: “It’s some comfort for the family to know he didn’t abandon them, and that he’s not lost anymore. But it’s so tragic that poor Uncle Gary never got to find out what happened to him.”
While the mystery that haunted his family for decades has been solved, there are many unanswered questions. “Now it’s the whys,” Russell says. “Why did someone do that to him? He never upset anyone, except for his fellow pigeon fanciers. He wasn’t a violent man, he didn’t get into fights, and he was known for being generous. I just don’t understand why anyone would have wanted him dead.
“I believe that somebody, somewhere, knows the truth. It could be that whoever did it kept schtum all their lives and made a deathbed confession, and that their sons or daughters know something but don’t want to say. My fear is that the police will close the case and we’ll never find out. I just hope that someone will come forward so Alfred’s family can finally find peace.”
Assistant Chief Constable Rob Griffin, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: “Alfred died in the most horrendous way imaginable. Not only did he suffer violent injuries, but he was then buried in a field so that no one would find him.
“What makes this crime even more distressing is that it has taken more than 50 years for his remains to be found and for his family to be reunited with their loved one so he can have a proper burial.
“Of course, there will be little relief for his family as there are still so many unanswered questions of what happened that night and the motive behind his murder. Many of the people who would have been with Alfred that night, or knew Alfred, are no longer alive and we may never get the full picture of what occurred in January 1967.
“That certainly hasn’t stifled our determination to investigate this crime and leave no stone unturned to find his killer or killers. During our investigation we have identified two potential suspects which under normal circumstances if Alfred had been murdered today, would have been arrested and brought in for questioning.
“We don’t have that opportunity as they are no longer alive. We will continue to investigate this crime and continue to look at all new and existing avenues available to us. It is more than a year since Alfred was found and we would like to hear from anyone who has not yet come forward to do so and help us with our investigation.
“As time goes by, loyalties change, and we would ask those who have more information about Alfred’s death to please come forward and do the right thing and help this grieving family get the closure they desperately need and deserve. This will continue to be at the heart of everything we do.”
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond. Sign up to our daily newsletter.