Body believed to be missing headmaster

Police believe a body found by walkers to be that of missing headteacher Alastair Wilbee, who disappeared after being accused of indecent assault against a boy.

The badly decomposed body of a man was found at Cowleaze, near Shanklin, Isle of Wight, at 3.30pm on Friday.

Police said the body has not been identified but they were looking at the possibility that it was that of Mr Wilbee.

A police spokesman said: "The body has been there for some time and that will make visual identification difficult.

"Police are looking at whether the body is that of Mr Wilbee as well as other missing persons from the rest of the UK."

Mr Wilbee, 47, disappeared from his home in Shanklin on August 28 a day before the allegations about him were due to appear in a local newspaper.

The father-of-two appeared before Newport magistrates on August 21 charged with indecent assault on a boy aged under 14.

Following his disappearance, his wife Gail spoke of her fears that her husband had committed suicide.

She said that she had seen her husband, headteacher of Summerfields Primary School in Newport, Isle of Wight go through a similar state of despair as the Government scientist David Kelly had been described as going through before his death.

She said in September: "I watched the news about the David Kelly inquiry, about the words of the suicide expert and I watched my husband go through those same stages of loss, grief, not anger but powerlessness. My husband is a very well respected man and this is a tragedy."

Most watched News videos