28 years on, parents held for ‘murder of their disabled son’
23-year-old vanished mysteriously on family Christmas trip to beach
THE parents of a disabled man who vanished mysteriously 28 years ago have been arrested on suspicion of his murder.
Steven Clark, 23, was reported missing in 1992 following a family trip to the beach three days after Christmas.
Police were told he took a walk along a Victorian pier with his parents Charles and Doris Clark and then went into the public toilets. His mother said she went to the ladies while he was in the gents at Saltburn-by-the-Sea, North Yorkshire.
But Mr Clark wasn’t seen coming out of the public toilets, never returned home and hasn’t been seen since.
His family filed a missing person report and the case was still being treated as a mystery disappearance until a cold case review team launched a fresh investigation earlier this year and upgraded it to a murder inquiry.
Mr Clark had been involved in a childhood road accident that left him with physical disabilities in the form of a heavily damaged left arm and a damaged leg meaning his ability to walk was severely impaired. He was last seen at 3pm on December 28, 1992, the bank holiday Monday after Christmas.
Yesterday the missing man’s mother Mrs Clark confirmed she and her husband were the two people police arrested over his murder. Speaking at the family’s large semi-detached home close to the seafront in nearby Marskeby-the-Sea, she said: ‘Apparently they think we murdered him. I still can’t quite believe it, it’s farcical. ‘The police turned up yesterday, four of them, and we were taken to the police station at Kirkleatham and we were there all day answering questions. We are having to live through this all over again, but this is worse than we could have imagined.
‘We did not do anything to Steven, I can assure anyone of that. We have to go back to the police tomorrow and we’ll see what they intend to do.’ With no proof of life and no explanation for his disappearance, officers from the Cleveland and North Yorkshire Cold Case Unit concluded he had been killed or come to serious harm.
Announcing the ‘significant arrests’, police said the key to solving the mystery was establishing what Mr Clark’s relationships were like with the people he knew at the time of his disappearance. Detectives would only confirm
‘There is no proof of life’
that the two people they arrested had been released on bail pending further investigation.
Appealing for information, Detective Chief Inspector Shaun Page, from Cleveland Police, said: ‘Steven has been missing for 28 years. There were many question marks over his disappearance, and as a result of our initial reinvestigation and the fact that there is no proof of life, we believe that Steven has come to harm.
‘I appreciate that we’re asking people to think back to the 1990s, but there may be people who knew Steven and have information.’