Body found next to railway line is missing Barrow dad Chris Dixon

Police were called to the stretch of the line between Park Avenue and Marsh Street yesterday at 11.30am after being alerted by a train passenger.

Detectives have now said the body is that of missing man Chris Dixon, 32, who was last seen on October 24. Police said his death is not being treated as suspicious and the coroner has been informed.

A spokesman said there is no criminal investigation is ongoing into the death. Nobody is wanted in connection with Mr Dixon's death or the discovery of his body.

Police say the last reported sighting of Mr Dixon was at around 7.45am on Tuesday October 24, in Abbey Road, near to the junction of Cheltenham Street and Park Drive, just half a mile from where he was found dead.

Since then there have been no reported sightings of Mr Dixon.

His family and friends conducted a search of the docks a week ago and have been handing out leaflets appealing for help in finding him.

The mother of Mr Dixon's five-year-old daughter Amelia, Rachel Whalley, made a plea to Mr Dixon to make contact in a video appeal in the hope he was still alive.

Police also conducted a search of the area around Ormsgill Reservoir but there has been no sight of Mr Dixon for more than three weeks until his body was found yesterday.

Earlier this week, a man and a woman who were the last people to see Mr Dixon alive were arrested on suspicion of assault and drugs offences at a flat in Abbey Road but they were both released and remain under investigation.

Network Rail officers had conducted a search of the area the day before on Wednesday after another train passenger reported seeing a body. That search was concluded with Network Rail reporting it had only found a pile of rubbish.

The second train passenger, who spotted the body yesterday, told The Mail he reported the sighting to the conductor onboard a train from Ulverston to Barrow.

The passenger claims he was told by the conductor that staff were "aware" of the sighting from the day before but it had been found to be a pile of rubbish.

However, the passenger says he continued to maintain that he was certain that what he had seen was a dead body, and his insistence resulted in a second search.

He told The Mail : "They didn't want to take me seriously and it was only when I kicked off that they did a second search. Why did it take two sightings for them to do a proper search?

"I was absolutely adamant that what I'd seen was a body. I offered to walk down the line with them to show them."

Some 30 minutes after the train arrived at Barrow at around 10.55am, another search was carried out and the body was found.

The Mail has contacted Network Rail, British Transport Police and Cumbria Constabulary to ask why police were not involved in the search after the first sighting of the body on Wednesday.

It is British Transport Police, not Cumbria Constabulary, who have jurisdiction over the railway lines. Cumbria police do not have authority to gain access to, or search, the lines, unless requested to do so by British Transport Police.

A spokesman for British Transport Police explained that as one of their units wasn't in the nearby area after Wednesday's sighting, a specially trained Network Rail manager who was in the vicinity, was sent to the scene to conduct a search.

The Network Rail manager reported back that the sighting was a pile of rubbish and no further action was taken.

A Network Rail spokeswoman said: “A passenger reported seeing what appeared to be a body at 1.44pm on Wednesday November 15. The area the passenger described was searched by Network Rail staff, but nothing was found at this time.

“The following day we received another sighting and the British Transport Police and Cumbria police began their investigation."

The discovery resulted in a number of rail services being cancelled and suspended across Cumbria but trains are now operating as normal and there is no police scene guard at the site.