Appeal to identify man 27 years after death in Bristol

The man has remained unidentified since his death in May 1996

Investigators are appealing for the public to help identify a man whose body was found in Bristol more than 25 years ago.

He might have been living rough before he fell off the Clifton Suspension Bridge, missing persons' charity Locate International said.

The man was of medium build and thought to be aged between 25 and 35 years old.

The charity has appealed for anyone with information to come forward about the man's possible identity.

Roland Hughes from the charity said: "The last piece of that puzzle is this appeal that we're making.

"And we're really hoping that somebody out there will recognise him or any of his items, or that something will ring a bell with them."

The charity works to solve unidentified missing person cases and said the man was about 6ft (1.8m) tall, had blue eyes and light brown collar-length hair.

Identifiable features

At the time of his death, he wore a black sweatshirt and jacket, blue Lee Riders jeans and brown boots and appeared to be carrying a photo of himself as a younger man.

He was found with a range of other personal items including a cardboard with a handwritten message reading "Sleeping rough, thank you", a copy of Thomas Moore's Utopia with no outer cover and bearing the name West Glamorgan County Council on the front page, as well as a paperback book of The Greatest Batman Stories.

Speaking to BBC Points West, Mr Hughes said the charity was "confident that there are enough identifiable features around this man that somebody out there will know him".

"Our feeling was that he was probably traveling around the country.

"He may well have been homeless, or living in shelters," he said.

"And our feeling is that he was an interesting man.

"We think he had a range of of interests and he carried a number of books with him that suggested that he was quite widely read."

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He said the copy of Thomas Moore's Utopia - a satirical book from the 16th century - he had with him could possibly have been an old library book.

The investigators' feeling was "that somebody will recognise him, and that is reaffirmed really by the fact that there was an image of him" which showed him as a younger man.

All of this "makes us really sure that somebody out there will recognise this picture, whether that's in the Bristol area or beyond", he said.