A PENSIONER reported missing from his home more than five months ago is believed to have been found dead in woodland.

Gordon Beard was reported missing after failing to return home to Kestrel Drive, Loggerheads, on August 18.

The dementia sufferer is thought to have gone out on a walk.

Police began a search and combed his favourite haunts, before drafting in the Army to help look for him.

What is thought to be the 79-year-old's body was found on land off Pheasant Walk, Loggerheads, close to where Mr Beard lived, yesterday.

Mr Beard's family members were too upset to comment last night, but his sons David and Alan have previously voiced their concerns about their father in The Sentinel.

When the search was scaled down in September, David, who lives in Yorkshire, said that hopes of finding his father alive were fading.

Mr Beard, a grandfather-of-three, was a retired mining engineer and a former manager at Hem Heath Colliery. He was also a member of Market Drayton Golf Club. He first developed symptoms of dementia about a year before he disappeared.

Police were called to the area where the body was found at 12.30pm yesterday and cordoned off the scene.

Detective Inspector Steve Maskery said: "The death is not being treated as suspicious and the family of the man have been informed.

"Formal identification has yet to take place, but police believe the body is that of Gordon Beard, who has been missing from his home in Loggerheads since Tuesday, August 18.

"A post-mortem examination will be carried out as part of the examination into the circumstances surrounding the death and a report will be sent to the coroner in due course."

The body was found when a man walking his dog went into undergrowth to retrieve a ball which had gone astray from a nearby football match between Loggerheads and Baddeley Green football clubs.

Dennis Whalley, secretary of Loggerheads FC, aged 74, who lives in Loggerheads, said: "It was coming to the end of the game and the ball went into the woods by the pitch, so someone with a dog went to get it.

"He disturbed the undergrowth and found the man. The police arrived 15 to 20 minutes later and cordoned everywhere off. It was only 20 yards away from the pitch."