Alfred Swinscoe: Family's plea after remains found in Sutton-in-Ashfield identified
The family of a man whose remains were found buried in a field more than half a century after he went missing are calling for help to bring his killers to justice.
Alfred Swinscoe was 54 when he mysteriously disappeared in early 1967.
His fate remained a mystery until his skeleton was uncovered during construction work on farmland in Coxmoor Road in Sutton-in-Ashfield, North Nottinghamshire, on 26 April this year.
Mr Swinscoe's daughter Julie, now 82, says she "doesn’t want to go to her grave" never knowing what happened to her "loving and hard-working dad".
She said: "We never expected that the remains found in Sutton would be him. I practically went hysterical. I said: 'He can’t have lay 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. I am 82 now and I could go myself at any time."
Mr Swinscoe, a father-of-six and a colliery worker, who loved pigeon racing, was last seen drinking at the Pinxton Miners Arms in Derbyshire in early 1967 before he disappeared.
He handed his son, Gary, money to buy a round and went to use the outside toilet but never returned.
Julie added: "I was 25 at the time [he disappeared], a factory worker, and I remember coming home one day from work and people saying they couldn’t find dad. He had gone missing, and the police were searching.
"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?"
Mr Swinscoe's fate remained a mystery until the remains were found and Nottinghamshire Police were contacted.Extensive DNA work ruled out three victims of other murders where bodies had never been found.
There was no breakthrough until Mr Swinscoe's grandson, Russell Lowbridge, who was four when he went missing, contacted police following a media appeal for information.
He told officers items of clothing found with the remains, including two distinctive socks and a shoe, were believed to be his grandfather's.
DNA tests on Mr Swinscoe's family members matched the bones exhumed from the ground.
Mr Lowbridge's uncle, Gary – Mr Swinscoe's son – died in November 2012.
Mr Lowbridge, 60, who now works for St John’s Ambulance, said: "He doted on my grandad. He always said what a great pigeon racer he was. They had a shared passion for it.
"His disappearance haunted by Uncle Gary his whole life. He went to his grave never knowing what happened.
"He wouldn’t let it go, especially as he was in the pub with him the night he went missing. He just remembers his dad giving him a ten bob note - telling him to get a round and then never ever seeing him again.
"He would go back to Pinxton at the time and even search down disused wells and even hired a private detective near the end.
"It completely broke him, never knowing what happened to his dad. I want justice for Gary because he tried so hard to get answers."
He said Mr Swinscoe would be buried next to Gary.
"It is time this old miner came home," he said. "It’s like what pigeon racers would say ‘it has been a long hold-over, it has been a smash up of a race, but the old bird has finally clocked in."Police want to hear from anyone who knows Alfred, drank at the Pinxton Miners Arms, or knows anything about his disappearance.
Julie said: "He was born and grew up in Pinxton and was a hard-working, loving father. They really respected him at the colliery because he was good at his job and liked to socialise in the pub after work.
"Everyone knew who he was in Pinxton because it was a proper pit village."We might be able to now give my dad the funeral he deserves but we don’t have the answers we desperately want.
"Someone killed my dad and I want to know why? I need to know why."
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