Brother who was lost for TEN YEARS was in care home after all

Rod Fraser, 50, repeatedly asked police and social services for help in tracking down his brother, Ian, 57, who vanished in 1998.

But they claimed they were unable to find the former welder, who is deaf and suffers from the neurological disorder Huntington's disease.

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Only when a social worker contacted the family in January to tell them Ian was dying did Mr Fraser finally discover where his brother had been living for the past ten years.

He found him seriously ill and unable to recognise his family at a private care home for patients with severe mental illnesses 120 miles away.

An official investigation has begun into why Ian was kept at the home, near Hull, for so long without his family being contacted.

Mr Fraser said: "My brother has been left to suffer for ten years. How can this happen in this day and age? They have ruined our Ian's life."

Mr Fraser last saw his brother in May 1998 when he paid him a visit. Ian, who was born without eardrums and cannot talk properly, was a well known figure in the area around his home, near Chorley, Lancashire.

He was often seen riding his bicycle and did odd gardening and welding jobs.

Mr Fraser, who is also from Chorley, said he believed Ian may have been wrongly sectioned and taken into care after being picked up by police who may have thought he was drunk or mentally ill.

But he insisted the authorities should have been able to contact the family because Ian always carried their details with him.

"I did worry that I may never see my brother again," Mr Fraser said.

"Every two years I spent about a month ringing the police and social services, trying to find him.

"But I didn't have his social security number and he wasn't on the voters' roll in the home."

Mr Fraser claims his brother tried to escape from the home in the first two years he was there and that he was given high doses of tranquiliser drugs to sedate him.

He claims it was in the care home's interest to keep him incarcerated because they were receiving more than £500-a-week from the Government to pay for Ian's care.

In January the two brothers had an emotional reunion at the home. Mr Fraser said he wept when he saw Ian, who was too poorly to recognise him.

He is now hoping to get his brother moved to a care home nearer to his family.