POLICE have revealed a French man who went missing in Ellesmere Port in 2009 died as a result of blunt force trauma.
A post mortem carried out on Thursday evening on remains thought to belong to Ryanair cabin crew member Christophe Borgye, who was last seen on April 23 22009 aged 35, also proved the remains were human.
Officers are making enquiries into dental records to establish the identity of the body, found buried clost to a small brick out-building in the back garden of a house on Hylton Court, close to Cheshire Oaks.
Two men were arrested on suspicion of Mr Borgye’s murder, a 34-year-old arrested on Thursday and a 35-year-old, who was arrested on Tuesday and later sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
The 35-year-old was arrested on suspicion of murder after calling police to tell them the body of missing Christophe Borgye, who was also French, was in the garden.
The second man, aged 34, was arrested in Scotland by Dumfries and Galloway police. Both men are believed to have lived at Hylton Court with Mr Borgye, who worked out of Liverpool airport, at the time of his disappearance.
Police began searching the outbuilding of the house on Wednesday, May 15 and later that afternoon, the remains were unearthed.
Detective Chief Inspector Simon Price from the Major Incident Team reassured neighbours and thanked them for their patience.
He said: “Incidents like this are thankfully rare, especially in Cheshire, and I appreciate the public may be concerned about the police activity in the area.
“I want to reassure them that this is a contained incident, we have arrested two men and have a team of officers working on the case.
“The residents have put up with our presence there over the past few days. It’s likely we’ll be there for some time in the future.
“Formal identification is going to take some time but based on the information we have, we believe the victim is Christophe who was known to the man in custody.
“There’s been painstaking work going on at the address with colleagues from Cellmark Forensics.
“We’ve recovered what we believe to be human remains and a Home Office post mortem examination is taking place this evening.”
DCI Price said the investigation will focus on what happened on Hylton Court in the days and weeks before Mr Borgye disappeared.
He added: “We are investigating associations between the individuals. “There’s a lot of information to piece together regarding what was going on at the address at the time.”
DCI Price explained why police chose not to publicise the disappearance of Mr Borgye.
He added: “The conclusion at the time was he may well have gone travelling and left the UK. Lots of people are reported missing to the police but not every one is publicised.
“In this case, Mr Borgye’s disappearance was reviewed on a number of occasions.”
DCI Price thanked the people currently living at the house.
“The people living in the property now have been fully co-operative with us. We don’t think any of those current occupants are involved,” he said.
“I would like to offer my condolences to the family ahead of any information that might come to light.”
Police spokeswoman Shelley Smith said: “His family in France have been contacted and made aware of the investigation and discovery.”
Anyone with any information is asked to call police on 101 quoting incident number 932 of May 13 or alternatively contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
