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Nottingham Post
Nottingham Post
National
Olimpia Zagnat & Joel Moore

Sutton-in-Ashfield human remains are not those of missing James Brodie, Nottinghamshire Police confirm

Human remains found in a Sutton-in-Ashfield field are not those of missing James Brodie, Nottinghamshire Police have said. Bones were found by a member of the public on farmland off Coxmoor Road on April 26.

Police have since launched a murder investigation due to the injuries sustained on the body. In a press conference held on Wednesday, May 24, police ruled out the possibility that the remains belonged to Brodie and Bogdan Nawrocki - two high profile missing cases.

Brodie, the man suspected of shooting dead Marian Bates during a robbery at her jewellery shop in 2003, has been missing since the raid. The 64-year-old grandmother was at Time Centre in Arnold with her husband and daughter at the time.

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Brodie's accomplice Peter Williams was jailed for 22 years after being convicted of murder. In legal submissions, the judge heard Williams told police that Bestwood crime boss Colin Gunn was behind the robbery.

However he has never been charged over this. The court heard Williams took part in the robbery but that an accomplice – believed to be Brodie – fired the shot.

Forensic officers work within a police cordon on the edge of a farmer's field beside Nomanshill Wood, off Coxmoor Road, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire. (Joseph Raynor/ Nottingham Post)

Brodie, who was 19 at the time and originally from Bulwell, has been missing ever since the raid, with police searching places such as Glasgow, Leicestershire, land near Flintham, and flats in Top Valley and Bulwell over the years. In 2013, an extensive search of farmland and a canal in Lincolnshire were searched for his remains but nothing was found.

The farmland, called Maize Farm, was the home address of Darren Peters back in 2005. He was jailed for four years in 2006 after he admitted conspiring to commit misconduct in public office.

Peters was one of several people, including Colin Gunn, jailed in connection with a police corruption conspiracy involving PC Charles Fletcher. Dean Betton, who was jailed for conspiring to rob the jewellers in 2005, was later charged with killing Brodie but the case was dropped in 2013.

In a completely separate and unrelated case, Mr Nawrocki, who was living in Nottingham, was murdered in 2014 by fellow Polish immigrant Robert Marcinkiewicz-Szurkowski. However, the body of the 21-year-old has not been found since he went missing from his Radford home.

A search was carried out at former John Player cigarettes factory in Radford in 2015, however nothing was found.

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