Neighbours of Conley Thomspon have paid tribute to the seven-year-old schoolboy who went missing near his home in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, last night, as police find a body, believed to be that of the schoolboy, on a local construction site.
Advertisement
The boy vanished after playing with friends in Locke Park, a mile away from the site and about two miles away from his home in Barnsley.
Detective Chief Inspector Dave Stopford, the senior investigating officer, said: “The results of the post-mortem suggest that Conley had, by some means, entered a vertical pipe on a nearby construction site and was unable to get out”.
“While it’s early in the investigation, the death is being treated as unexplained and a postmortem will take place in due course”.
“Our thoughts stay with Conleyis relatives and buddies only at that extremely tough time”.
“It makes it worse because he was the same age as my son”.
“He played with all the kids in the area”.
He added: “He used to come and play round my house with my kids. The whole community is in shock”.
St. Thomas’ Church will be open tomorrow and Wednesday for those who would like to pay their respects the young boy and his family and a book of condolences will be available for the public.
The boy’s family were too devastated to speak this morning – while a woman, believed to be his mother, left the street in a vehicle.
He went on: “The construction site, where Conley was sadly discovered by construction workers this morning, was checked by officers during the hours of darkness and found to be securely locked with a large perimeter fence”. If a security guard was on site then he would have spotted it and would have prevented it from happening. It was raining and we just expected him to come home.
He said Piletec was employed by Erris Homes.
Police are growing increasingly concerned as to the whereabouts of a 7-year-old boy from Barnsley who has been missing since 8pm on Sunday evening.
“If they want to pray, to reflect or to share their grief, there’ll be somebody here to help them through that process”, he said.
Advertisement
Anyone with information should contact South Yorkshire Police on 101 quoting incident number 1,148 of July 26.
