UK UK - Steven Newing, 10, Fakenham, Norfolk, 2 Sept 1969

[Al Ka]

Steven Paul Newing

Missing since September 2, 1969 from Fakenham, Norfolk, England, United Kingdom.
Classification: Endangered Missing

Vital Statistics

• • Date Of Birth: 1958
  • Age at Time of Disappearance: 10 years old
  • Distinguishing Characteristics: Freckles.

Circumstances of Disappearance

Newing was playing near his home in Lee Warner Avenue, Fakenham, just days before his 11th birthday when he vanished. One theory was that he had fallen down a disused well shaft of an old sawmill nearby, but it is widely believed that he was abducted.

A hostel was named after him in May 2003 in Fakenham and dedicated by his mother Jean. It is for young homeless people between the ages of 16 and 25.

The Doe Network: Case File 526DMUK

 

[zencompass]

Thank you for sharing the heartwarming information that a youth hostel was dedicated in Steven's name in Fakenham.

Hoping and praying that answers are found as to what happened to this dear boy.

This story is deeply saddening and sharing the news about the hostel dedicated in Steven's name is so heartlifting to hear.

 

[Al Ka]

Published 14 Feb 1977 (click on image to enlarge)



14 Feb 1977, 5 - The Guardian at Newspapers.com

 

[Al Ka]

At about 10pm on Tuesday 2 September 1969 Steven Paul Newing, age 11 was reported as a #Missing person from his home in #Fakenham by his mother Jean Audrey Newing.

Steven was the eldest of four children, his mother had separated from Stevens’s father and was living with her partner. Steven had previously lived in other locations as his father was in the RAF, prior to his parents’ separation.

There is no known reason as to why Stephen would want to leave home or run away.

Original Investigation

There were a number of sightings of Steven during the course of the day on Tuesday 2 September 1969 mostly from school friends. The last reliable sighting was at about 7pm that day when a friend travelling on a bus saw Steven walking on his own near the junction of the A149 road close to the turn off to Hindringham.

A full scale enquiry into Stevens’s disappearance was conducted. Stevens’s home was searched as was the surrounding area together with locations that Steven was known to visit.

Although there were many potential sightings nothing significant was discovered about the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. The most significant potential sighting was at Sutton Bridge in Lincolnshire. A man working for a circus was interviewed as a potential abductor of Steven but this line of enquiry proved fruitless.

Why has this case been looked at again?

The original paperwork has been reviewed to make sure nothing significant had been missed during the original enquiry. 2009 was the 40th anniversary of Steven’s disappearance and an appeal was made through the local press. This appeal generated a limited response and nothing significant was forthcoming.

Current Progress

Steven’s mother Jean and his younger brother Terence have been kept in touch regarding recent developments.

Their DNA has been taken and loaded onto the Missing Persons National DNA database.

With new forensic techniques it is possible that any body parts found in the UK in the future could be proven to be Steven.

Work has also been undertaken in the Norfolk area in respect of predatory paedophiles that operated in the area at that time.

No link has been established that Steven was abducted by a paedophile.

Additional Information

We continue to ask any information that can help bring closure to Steven’s family

Contact details

Contact Tel: 01953 42 4520
Contact Fax: 01953 42 4542

Email: coldcaseteam@norfolk.pnn.police.uk
Alternatively you can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on: 0800 555 111 .

Missing people in and around Norwich

 

[Al Ka]

13 September, 2002 Service for boy missing for 33 years

A special memorial service is being held for a 10-year-old boy who vanished without trace more than 30 years ago.

Steven Newing was last seen playing near his home in Fakenham, Norfolk, on 2 September,1969.

Police were unable to find any trace of him and his body has never been discovered.

On Saturday at Fakenham Parish Church a memorial to the little boy will be unveiled at a service in his memory.

Steven's mother, 67-year-old Jean Newing, will be at the service as will former friends and teachers of Steven, as well as at least one police officer involved in the investigation into his disappearance.

No funeral for Steven could be held because his body was never found.
---
The memorial created for Steven is a piece of ironwork in the shape of a prayer candle stand and carries the inscription: "In thanksgiving for the life of Steven Paul Newing - may he rest in peace."

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Service for boy missing for 33 years

 

[Al Ka]

01 September 2009
Last chance to find boy who disappeared 40 years ago

Cold case detectives have launched a fresh bid to trace missing Norfolk teenager Steven Newing, saying the 40th anniversary of his disappearance could provide the final opportunity to uncover the truth.
---
Meanwhile Steven's mother, 74-year-old Jean Newing, told how the memory of her freckle faced 11-year-old, missing presumed dead from for 40 years tomorrow , continues to haunt her.

The mother-of-four added: “I have never stopped thinking about him and this may be the last chance in my lifetime to find out what happened. I look at his picture and he is like my Peter Pan - the only one of my children who never grew old.”
---
Steven disappeared without a trace after leaving his home in Lee Warner Avenue, Fakenham, to visit a friend on the afternoon of September 2, 1969. This came five months after another high profile missing persons case - that of April Fabb - which also remains unsolved.

One theory was that both had been abducted but detectives were never able to prove this. Other leads, including the possibilities that he fell down a well or ran away from home, were also pursued to no avail. No body was ever found.

Mr Guy, who leads Norfolk police's cold case team, said: “It is inconceivable that a young boy could disappear off the face of the earth without anyone knowing why.

“There is somebody out there who was either involved or who suspects they know who was involved. Maybe they didn't feel able to come forward at the time but, after all these years, feel the need to speak about it.

“These cases are never closed - we will keep the investigation going until we have an answer. But with the passage of time key witnesses or even the offender may have died or be in old age.

“The message is that, if you know something, this is your chance to get it off your conscience and to help Steven's family finally find out what happened to him.”
---
One key line of inquiry at the time of Steven's disappearance is that he was snatched by a paedophile. Shortly after he went missing there were reported sightings with a bearded man first at Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire, then Kessingland, Suffolk. The sightings were never traced.

Police scoured old buildings, farms and outhouses. They made appeals on television and radio, locally and nationally.

Norfolk's cold case team has more than 30 investigations on its file and is systematically working through each one. Mr Guy said: “These cases are always open but anniversaries provide a good opportunity to make a breakthrough.
---
The last Jean Newing saw of her “mischievous son” Steven was him playing in the street with friends. It was a hot summery day and he seemed his normal care-free self.

He had just celebrated his 11th birthday and was due to start Fakenham Secondary Modern School a few days later.

Recalling that day in September, 1969, Mrs Newing said: “I can't even remember my last words to him; I probably said something like 'make sure you're back by eight o'clock'. It didn't seem important at the time because I didn't think for one minute that I'd never see him again.”

Mrs Newing was not concerned when Steven failed to return to his home in Lee Warner Avenue, Fakenham, on time - she assumed he had been playing and lost track of time.

It was only after an hour that, with the disappearance of 13-year-old April Fabb from Metton, near Cromer, still fresh in her memory, she grew worried and contacted the police.

The subsequent police investigation saw officers scouring the countryside for any trace. They twice searched the family home to make certain Steven was not hiding or hidden there. Detectives are confident the family was not involved in his disappearance.
---
“Losing one of your children is something you can never forget. He was the eldest so his brothers and sisters never really had a chance to get to know him.

“Nothing can bring him back but at least we can find out what happened to him. I would appeal to anyone who knows anything to put themselves in our position and think how they would feel if they lost someone they loved and never knew what happened.”

Steven was a freckle-faced boy with a distinctive and engaging smile. On the day he disappeared he was wearing a blue rollneck sweater with a yellow and green sweat over the top and blue jeans.

He had a birthmark across his bottom and carried the lasting scars of two childhood accidents: his elbow regularly came out of its joint and required hospital treatment following a fall and his teeth had been reset after he was kicked during a football match.
---
For years the most plausible theory seemed to be that Steven had fallen down an old well on the nearby Driftlands housing estate. This well was traced in 1979 but never excavated because of evidence it had been filled in a year before Steven's disappearance.

Last chance to find boy who disappeared 40 years ago

(some parts above were bolded by me)

 

[Al Ka]

17 May 2013
‘I still think of my Steven every day.’ Mother speaks about her son who has been missing for 44 years

Jean Newing said she still thinks every day of her freckle faced “mischievous” boy, Steven Newing, who disappeared from his Fakenham home on September 2, 1969, aged 11.

She also spoke of her immense pride at the good work being done in the town in his name.

Speaking exclusively to the EDP at a celebration event to mark the 10th anniversary of the opening of Steven Newing House in Fakenham, which houses and supports vulnerable 16 to 25-year-olds, Mrs Newing, 77, said: “As you get older you have more time to think about things and I still think of Steven every day.

“I think of his cheeky little freckled face and the way he always used to get up to mischief, whether it was falling off his bike, falling out of a tree or having his teeth knocked out by a football.

“I still very much want to know what happened to him.
---
Mrs Newing still clearly remembers the day her son went missing from his home on Lee Warner Avenue.

She said: “It was the school holidays and he was playing with a friend. He said he was going to his friend’s house for dinner.

“The last thing I said to him was ‘don’t be any later than 8pm.’ When he wasn’t back by 9pm I called the police and have never seen him since.
---
The constant speculation and reminders about what happened became too much for Mrs Newing and she left Fakenham in 1980.

The case was reviewed in 2009, the 40th anniversary of Steven’s disappearance, and police re-launched an appeal for information in the media.

But no significant new leads came from it.

Mrs Newing now lives in Bracknell, Berkshire and came to Fakenham on Wednesday for the 10th anniversary of the opening of Steven Newing House, on Barons Close.

She said: “Every day people were saying this happened or that happened and the other kids were getting it at school as well. “It became unbearable and we had to get away.”

Mrs Newing who has three other, now grown up children, said: “Having other children and making sure nothing ever happened to them is what kept me going.”

Steven Newing House was opened in Steven’s name in 2003.

‘I still think of my Steven every day.’ Mother speaks about her son who has been missing for 44 years

 

[Al Ka]

24 MAY 2014
Mother of boy who vanished 45 years ago wants police to quiz notorious paedophile Sidney Cooke

The mother of a schoolboy who vanished nearly 45 years ago has called on police to quiz the notorious paedophile Sydney Cooke.

Heartbroken Jean Newing has never found out what became of 11-year-old Steven, who disappeared on his way to visit a friend on September 2, 1969.

But it has emerged that Cooke, now 87 and serving life, was in the area at the time as a fairground worker nicknamed Hissing Sid.

He became the leader of a gang of paedophiles known as the Dirty Dozen who are believed to have abducted, drugged, raped and killed up to nine children.

Now Jean, 79, is demanding her son’s case be reopened.
---
The breakthrough was made by a former intelligence officer at Norfolk police not involved in the original investigation.

Now retired, Chris Clark, 67, specialises in cold cases.

He traced Cooke to a family-run business with a fair a few miles from Steven’s home in Fakenham, Norfolk.

Chris said: “I believe there is strong circumstantial evidence linking Cooke to the Norfolk area at the time that Steven went missing.

“We know he worked in travelling fairs and I have confirmed a family firm he worked for had a fair a few miles away. “There was also one sighting of Steven with a man and the age and description match Cooke at the time.

“I believe the police should question Cooke in prison. He holds the key to this mystery.”

The paedophile worked for a firm that had a travelling fair in the town of East Derham. This was about 15 miles away from Fakenham on the day Steven went missing. Initially, detectives thought the youngster might have run away.
---
After being presented with Chris’s evidence, Jean revealed to the Sunday People that police showed her footage of a boy with a fairground worker several years after Steven vanished. She says she was even taken to the fairground where they questioned staff.
---
Evil Cooke is now wheelchair-bound in Wakefield Prison, West Yorks, nicknamed Monster Mansion because of its notorious inmates.

In the 1980s he led a vile gang who would hire rent boys or snatch vulnerable boys off the street for orgies in a flat on the Kingsmead estate in Hackney, East London.

The gang each paid £5 to rape and abuse 14-year-old Jason Swift until he died. His body was later found in a shallow grave.
---
Cooke and three accomplices Leslie Bailey, Robert Oliver and Steven Barrell, were jailed in 1989 for manslaughter.

He was named by one of the gang as a killer of seven-year-old Mark Tildesley, who vanished in 1984 while visiting a fair near home in Wokingham, Berks.

Despite the allegation, Cooke was freed in 1998 but rearrested the following year and jailed for life for repeatedly abusing two young brothers in the early 70s.

Mother of boy who vanished 45 years ago wants police to quiz notorious paedophile Sidney Cooke

 

[Al Ka]

03 September 2015
Norfolk police say file on missing Fakenham schoolboy will never be closed

Steven Newing was reported missing at about 10pm on September 2, 1969.
On the evening he disappeared, he was seen by a friend walking on his own near the junction of the A149, close to the Hindringham turn-off.
---
Police say that there was another “significant potential sighting” at Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire.

A man working for a circus which was in the area at the time was also interviewed as a potential abductor.

Inquiries carried out at the time and since have so far drawn a blank.

But Det Insp Andy Guy, from the Norfolk and Suffolk Major Investigation Team, said: “It’s now 46 years since Steven disappeared.
---
That conclusion will come too late for Steven’s mother, who died on the day before the anniversary of his disappearence, in 2014. Speaking to the Times in 2013, then aged 77, she said she still thought of her freckle faced “mischievous” boy every day.

Norfolk police say file on missing Fakenham schoolboy will never be closed

 

[sportstergirl]

Brian Field was working as a repairer of farm machinery at the time and travelled around the country. The previous year he he killed Roy Tutill and evaded justice for 33 years. I find it difficult to believe this was Field's only killing. He also did gardening and had access to many dump sites. East Anglia is also known for it's many creeks and marshes, ideal places to dump a body.

 

[BGoodwin94]

Brian Field was working as a repairer of farm machinery at the time and travelled around the country. The previous year he he killed Roy Tutill and evaded justice for 33 years. I find it difficult to believe this was Field's only killing. He also did gardening and had access to many dump sites. East Anglia is also known for it's many creeks and marshes, ideal places to dump a body.

Brian Lull Field's name came up with two boys that went missing in '86 and '88 and that was is Croydon and Suffolk. Both have never been found. Going through some records, Field was imprisoned in 1983 for 4 years at Shrewsbury Crown Court, along with another guy, possibly an associate. The boy that went missing in 1988 (Lee Boxell) apparently stumbled on a paedophile ring at a local youth club and that could be a reason for him missing. It could be possible that Field and his associate were involved.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

White mouse clue in missing boy 50-year cold case

 

[Al Ka]

White mouse clue in missing boy 50-year cold case

Steven Newing: White mouse clue in 50-year cold case of missing boy

An 11-year-old boy who went missing 50 years ago was seen playing with a white mouse on the day he disappeared, police have revealed.

Schoolboy Steven Newing was last seen near his home in Fakenham, Norfolk, on 2 September 1969.

Norfolk police hope the little-known detail may jog memories as part of a 50th anniversary appeal they call "the last roll of the dice".

Steven's family urged people with information to help "lay him to rest".
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Steven was reported missing by his mother Jean when he failed to come back to their home in Lee Warner Avenue that night.

He had left his bike at home and had no money with him, fuelling fears that he had been abducted. A satchel believed to be his was later found, and sightings were reported in Norfolk, Suffolk and Lincolnshire.
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Norfolk and Suffolk cold case manager Andy Guy said the detail of Steven's mouse might stir people's memories.

"People may not remember seeing an 11-year-old 50 years ago, but they might remember an 11-year-old boy with a white mouse," he said.

The schoolboy had found the animal the day before in a neighbour's garden and had been showing it to friends on the day he disappeared, he said.
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Mr Guy said it was most likely Steven had suffered "misadventure" or "come to harm by a third party", but said suggestions the boy fell down a well had been fully investigated.

"Fifty years on is probably the last time we can appeal to people," said Mr Guy.

 

[EternalHope]

As a local to this case, I would just like to thank you all for posting, and coming back to update with the latest press reports. Even though this is 50 years ago today, it is nice to know that people elsewhere do care enough to acknowledge this.

I wasn't born when this happened, but my parents knew Steven's Mum, Jean, and say she was a lovely lady, who was devastated by Steven's disappearance.

 

[CastlesBurning]

Still missing, now 51 years...

Steven Newing

 

[alb1on]

Brian Lull Field's name came up with two boys that went missing in '86 and '88 and that was is Croydon and Suffolk. Both have never been found. Going through some records, Field was imprisoned in 1983 for 4 years at Shrewsbury Crown Court, along with another guy, possibly an associate. The boy that went missing in 1988 (Lee Boxell) apparently stumbled on a paedophile ring at a local youth club and that could be a reason for him missing. It could be possible that Field and his associate were involved.

I have some doubt about Field as the culprit in this case, although it is not impossible. His record suggests a degree of impulsive behaviour and lack of care in covering his tracks. In the Tutill case he kept the body for days and then dumped it where it was always going to be found. This case suggests a more organised offender to me. Cooke seems more plausible.