A CORONER may well have finally solved a mystery that has hung over South Lakeland since an unidentified body was found in a local river over 15 years ago.

South Cumbria coroner Ian Smith replied to a request for information from Devon and Cornwall about the whearabouts of six foot ten inches tall Ian Allison who disappeared without a trace in November 1994.

Mr Smith recalled an inquest into a body that was discovered by police in a River Leven sandbank at Sampool in June 1995 and replied to the request for information last year.

An inquest in 1996 ruled that the cause of death was "unascertainable" and an "open verdict" recorded.

Mr Allison was believed to have been hitch-hiking from Torquay to his home city of Glasgow when he disappeared and Devon and Cornwall Police, who never gave up the hunt for him, got their break when Mr Smith recalled the 1996 case.

Surviving DNA samples from the body were matched to Mr Allison's mother, Mary, who lives in Glasgow, and Devon and Cornwall police also traced clothing found on the body back to a part of the USA which Mr Allison was known to have visited.

Yesterday, with the backing of the Attorney-General, Dominic Grieve QC, Mr Smith went to London's High Court in a bid to put the mystery to rest once and for all.

Top judges, Lord Justice Pill and Mr Justice Roderick Evans, overturned the 1996 open verdict and gave the green light for a fresh inquest, a move which could finally see Mary Allison achieve her wish of being handed a death certificate with her son's name on it.