1926 disappearance 'kept secret'

David Wright, 46, said the disappearance of his great aunt, Emma Alice Smith, who was 16 when she was last seen, had remained a great mystery in the close-knit community of Waldron, East Sussex, ever since.

On Tuesday, Sussex Police announced they were reopening the investigation into the 1926 case after Mr Wright told them his great aunt Lily was tending to a dying man in the early 1950s when he confessed to killing Emma Alice.

Fearing the information would cause a scandal at the time, she decided to keep the information to herself.

Eventually she told her own niece, Mr Wright's mother Sheila, but swore her to secrecy and the secret had remained between the two of them for more than 50 years.

Mr Wright said: "I've known about my great aunt's disappearance since I was a small boy. I didn't know any more details about it because my mother had been sworn to keep what she knew to herself.

"Her aunt Lily had confessed to her that a gentleman, on his deathbed sometime in 1952 to 1953, had confessed to killing her sister. But she felt she was unable to bring it to light because her own father had just passed away.

"It was also a very small community and to make an accusation like that would have been scandalous in those days. Those sorts of things were hushed up or brushed under the carpet."

Police said the purpose of the inquiry was to locate the teenager's body and return it to her family so she could be buried according to their wishes.

Officers were not looking at any suspects in the investigation, a spokesman said.