A former Shropshire agricultural worker serving life for the murder of a 14-year-old boy has been questioned over the disappearance of two youngsters a decade ago and the apparent suicide of a teenager.

Paedophile Brian Lunn Field, 70, who lived near Oswestry, and worked in north Shropshire, has been questioned by officers investigating the case of David Spencer, 11, and Patrick Warren, 13, who went missing from Chelmsley Wood, near Birmingham, on Boxing Day, 1996.

Detective Chief Superintendent Gordon Fraser, West Midlands Police’s head of crime, today said Field had denied any involvement in the disappearance of Patrick and David.

“However Field can probably only ever be truly eliminated or otherwise once we have established what has happened to the boys,” he said.

“He remains in the inquiry and will possibly be spoken to again.

“The sudden death and apparent suicide of a 15-year-old boy in 1997 is also part of this investigation. This is because this tragedy took place in close proximity to Chelmsley Wood and the boy and his family were known to Field at the time.”

Field, a serial paedophile, previously lived and worked in the Oswestry and north Shropshire area. He worked for Fullwood and Bland in Ellesmere in the 1960s and 1970s, and then as a relief milker across the county.

In 1984 he was jailed for four years after kidnapping two boys in the St Martins area. They managed to escaped and raise the alarm.

Just how fortunate they were was revealed in 2001, when after being arrested for drink-driving, Field’s DNA linked him with the murder of 14-year-old Roy Tuthill in Surrey in 1968.

When he was jailed for life, police said that they would be looking at files on several unsolved child murders.

Mr Fraser stressed Field was only one line of inquiry.

“At this stage we are keen to prove once and for all whether or not he had anything to do with the disappearance of the two boys and other key lines of inquiry include people that may currently be on the sex offenders register and those with convictions for sex offences in the 1990s.

“The possibility of misadventure or accident has not been discounted,” he added.

By Sue Austin