River body drama: anxious wait for missing man's family

THE family of an missing 82-year-old Rotherham man are being kept informed as police try to identity a body pulled out of the River Don last night.

THE family of an missing 82-year-old Rotherham man is being kept informed as police try to identity a body pulled out of the River Don last night.

An RAF Sea King helicopter was drafted to retrieve the body of a man, which was trapped on a weir outside Doncaster Prison.

The body had been spotted shortly after 8pm on Sunday, but high water levels and debris caused by recent rain made it impossible to recover the body from the river bank.

Identification of the body is expected to take place this afternoon but a police spokesman confirmed that the family of missing Brinsworth man Ernest Lancaster were being “kept informed.”

He said: “We would, of course, be updating them as a matter of course and they are being kept informed on the situation following the discovery of this body.”

Fears for 82-year-old granddad, Ernest Lancaster, have been growing since he disappeared from his home on Alric Drive, Brinsworth, on April 7.

Extensive searches were carried out in of a number of possible routes and areas he regularly visited but there have been no official sightings to confirm his whereabouts.

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