Deceased/Not Found UK - Steven Clark, 23, disabled, Saltburn, Dec 1992

[annpats]

Seen with a man in his fifties, balding with grey hair. The camera then focused on the dad........

The thing is, Steven wouldn't just go off with a stranger. Why would he? He wasn't a child, nor mentally disabled no autistic.
He wouldn't have just gone off and left his Mum at the toilets wondering where he was. I just don't think he would.

The witness who said he/she saw Steven with with a balding man in his 50s, This would fit his Dad's description as he was back then.

The ITV documentary does seem to hint at that too.

MOO.

 

[Tortoise]

The searching the beach by torchlight was conveniently skipped over in the documentary. Just scenes enacted with shouting his name, but nothing said about it, I don't think. That seems to be part of the story that has changed and I wonder if it's because the tide was in.

 

[ZaZara]

The thing is, Steven wouldn't just go off with a stranger. Why would he? He wasn't a child, nor mentally disabled no autistic.
He wouldn't have just gone off and left his Mum at the toilets wondering where he was. I just don't think he would.

The witness who said he/she saw Steven with with a balding man in his 50s, This would fit his Dad's description as he was back then.

The ITV documentary does seem to hint at that too.

MOO.

Description of the man, as given by the Police:

The woman reports that Steven was with another person, a man aged around 50-60 years old. He was of medium build and was bald with grey hair around the sides, and he was wearing glasses.

Deceased/Not Found - UK - Steven Clark, 23, disabled, murdered, Saltburn, Dec 1992 *Arrests in 2020*


Picture of Charles Clark taken in 1998, six years after Steven's disappearance:

Here is an undated picture of the parents, IMO it is from a previous year

IMO Charles Clark wasn't 'bald with grey hair on the sides' in 1992 at all.
Also, he has broad shoulders and would not be described as 'of medium build'.

Besides, the parents are not suspects in Steven's disappearance. The ITV documentary was very clear about that too.

 

[trendsetter]

Here's the report of the sighting:

Police received a report of a potential sighting from a woman who said she saw Steven on Thursday, January 14, 1993 at 5pm when she was looking outside her living room window.
....

The woman reports that Steven was with another person, a man aged around 50-60 years old. He was of medium build and was bald with grey hair around the sides, and he was wearing glasses. Steven and the man were not talking and it looked as if Steven was walking to keep up with him. This sighting was reported in the local media on January 22, 1993​

It's hard to see that Charles Clark was walking around with his son over a fortnight after his son's reported disappearance.

Steven Clark: Cleveland Police speak in detail after doc is aired

 

[MariaMac]

This part of the documentary stuck out to me - didn't the woman say that her husband knew Steven and his parents? It made me wonder if perhaps the witness was asked to say he saw Steven as an alibi by the father, if they were close?

<Modsnip>

Have been reading but had nothing to add until now. I found the Stan Camaish conflicting statements strange. Why tell wife he was talking to him and in statement that he only saw him from a distance. Problem also is that they are all elderly and may have memory issues so very hard to tell really. There’s a pic of him online and he did have grey hair. Can’t link it I don’t think but if you search it comes up in a Marske Fisherman’s choir memorial. Maybe the witness saw him talking to Stan but got dates wrong?
Also it’s possible that a Ted Bundy type scenario happened. He comes out of toilet is waiting for mom and someone asks him to help with something in nearby car and snatches him. It would be interesting to know if there were any disappearances of young men in that wider general area around that time.

 

[MsMiniSleuth]

I think this article from January is the first I have seen a quote - albeit a one line one - from the sister.

Arrested parents of son made emotional appeal after he disappeared 28 years ago

On another track, could either of the parents have made any enemies, maybe from their time in the police, who could have been watching them to inact revenge, and did so by taking their son?

Or was Steven feeling stifled living at home - did his parents allow him much of an independent life? - and wanted to get away. Had he made prior plans? He seemed not to want to go to the football that day with the father, and if the walk was forced on him by the mother, could he have used the opportunity to get away when he spotted she wasn't around after he came out of toilet?

 

[PPowell]

When the father said he thought it was an April Fool when they were arrested, I kept thinking, who would be sick enough to pretend to be the police to parents of a missing child? Then again, it was probably just a metaphor for how it made him think.

 

[branmuffin]

Well, I haven't read the whole thread yet but I am having some serious deja vu. I lived in Seaton Carew and am very familiar with Saltburn and Redcar and Middlesborough including the transporter! Mind you, that was quite a while ago. I moved to Canada but have been back on subsequent visits. I don't want to jump ahead in the thread because I feel like I'm reading an Agatha Christie novel!

When I see pictures of Steven he looks like a big guy. It's obvious he has physical limitations but judging from his facial expression it appears he may have some intellectual limitations as well. Not enough to need full time care but enough that he needs caretakers. Sometimes people who fall within those boundaries can get frustrated when they feel they aren't being given enough freedom.

I'd be very interested to know whether the sister/daughter is older or younger than Steven and whether she still lived at home at the time of his disappearance.

There is an odd disconnect with his parents regarding his absence. At this point in time, I can't say whether I see their behavior as suspicious insofar as them being complicit in his disappearance; more like a cavalier attitude toward his absence, initially. Like they were doing their duty to look after a disabled son but without any real concern.

I'm leaning toward the walk never took place. But that it could be useful to use as a strategy since it was a common enough occurrence. Especially if neighbours could vouch for that fact. I'm not saying they are responsible for his disappearance but that they concocted the story because they had a big argument and he left in a huff.

I don't know what the weather was like that year but living on the north coast of England I can vouch for the fact that weather can be very capricious. I know in Seaton Carew the tide would go out so very far it seemed like a mile. You could get caught pretty quickly walking on the sands when the tide came back in. So if Steven and his parents had a row and he left to brood while walking he could have been caught off guard.

 

[branmuffin]

I feel LE has very little to go on and these searches are mainly carried out to impress the parents and lure them into a confession.

There have been no calls to the public in the area if their dogs have picked up something, or their kids did, and that would be the most obvious thing in a stretch of woodland where everybody walks their dog.

They better find Steven, because if they don't, all they have achieved is ruining the life of his elderly parents even further.

All IMOO. I would not want to be the one who gave the green light for this operation.

Yes, I can't imagine the trauma being accused of disappearing your disabled son if it is not true. Their initial cavalier attitude to his disappearance is probably what stoked the suspicion in people. People don't always respond to stress and trauma in ways the general public expects them to.

 

[branmuffin]

I wonder when they converted the garage to an extra room.

I could be wrong but that house is so typical of homes in the UK. They didn't usually have garages because in the 1930's when that house was probably built car ownership wasn't common for everybody.

 

[PPowell]

The way they were so excited at not being charged, reminded me of police interviews of a recent case where a man in the USA was charged with murdering his wife and kids, and in the interview he only seemed concerned about claiming his innocence, than how time was being wasted on him, than them searching for where they were.
Also the way he laughed on This Morning with the story about buying the football ticket could be mistaken for duper's delight.
Although suppose it's different with a case from a long time ago. The reporter spent a lot of time with them and believes them to be innocent.

 

[branmuffin]

Unless the police came after you, I suppose.

Steven's parents did a lot of searching at the time and later.

From the link that @Al Ka posted on page 1:

Clark, Steven December 1992


'We can't ever give up hope'

I'm interested in the fact that they were recently new to the area. If both parents were police officers was that in South Africa and they returned to the UK when they retired? If Steven lived his formative years in South Africa was he experiencing homesickness or missing people he had relationships with?

 

[branmuffin]

Cleveland Alert This is the link to the article on their Facebook page

Disabled man’s disappearance now treated as murder as charity Crimestoppers offers £10,000 reward
Steven Clark from Marske, Redcar and Cleveland, was last seen on Bank Holiday Monday 28 December in 1992
The independent charity Crimestoppers has launched an appeal for anonymous information and is offering a reward of up to £10,000 over the murder of Steven Clark.
Ruth McNee, Regional Manager for the North East at the charity Crimestoppers, said: “After all these years, it it’s so sad to think that no one has come forward to say exactly what happened to this young man. We are hoping that someone who may have been sitting on information about Steven’s murder will now have the courage to do the right thing and tell us anonymously about who is responsible for Steven’s untimely and unsolved death.
“We are appealing to anybody who may have witnessed what happened or who knows about those who were involved or may have been his acquaintances. You can tell our charity what you know 100% anonymously. Always. What you tell us can make all the difference.

“You can call our UK Contact Centre, which is open 24/7, on freephone number 0800 555 111 or you can use our simple and secure anonymous online form at www.crimestoppers-uk.org.

Why are they calling it murder when there is absolutely no evidence of that? This site is full of unidentified people who have died through misadventure not murder. They are dead but no one is responsible for their deaths.

I don't know whether I am doubting the witness. Not that she didn't see someone walking with a limp but whether that person was actually Steven.

A poster mentioned upthread about working with handicapped people and the process for weaning both parents and child from the dependency aspect of the relationship. Would it be harder for the parent to let go? I think perhaps someone like Steven whose intellectual disability may have been mild was chomping at the bit wanting a bit more freedom and his mom gave it to him by either leaving him at the loo or letting him walk back home by himself. And when he didn't return felt guilty and provided a cover story.

He was used to walking on the beach from Marske to Saltburn, it actually looks shorter than taking a regular land route. Could he have misread the tides coming in and got caught out on the flats? When I lived in Seaton Carew the sea could be kind of wild. Lots of stuff used to wash up on shore during rough seas. I remember a refreshment stand washing up after a storm, the sea was peppered with bags of chips (crisps), palm leaves, a dead pig, a torpedo and twice mines left over from WW2! The sea is equally adept at carrying things out to sea.

 

[branmuffin]

I think you can see from neighbouring houses, (take a meander along the road on google streetview), what the original footprint of the house was likely to have been. I doubt they were originally built with integral garages.

I agree. I have a family member who lives in a home exactly like that. They never had garages attached to them. The ones we see on Google with garages I believe have sacrificed living space for garages.

 

[branmuffin]

I wonder if people reported sightings of Steven directly to the police or if it was the Clarks telling the police people had told them they had seen him.
Perhaps Charles Clark went and limped around Redcar to try and impersonate Steven.

I'm wondering if the dates the police released back when Steven initially disappeared are confusing the situation. They talked about people coming forward if they'd seen him on a bank holiday anywhere from December 25 to the 28th. So if someone saw him on the 28th they may think that's 3 days after he disappeared.

 

[branmuffin]

New video footage released on 28th anniversary of disappearance

Steven Clark murder probe: Police release new footage on anniversary

Well, after seeing that I would say his intellectual limitations have been exaggerated. He seems perfectly fine to me. To be honest, I don't know whether we came to the decision he had limitations, his parents actually never said that, IIRC,

 

[branmuffin]

"Doris says the police seized on apparent ‘inconsistencies’ in their story."

"She is irritated, too, that police seemed to make much of some muddled memories from that time. ‘It all happened on the Saturday after Christmas and..."

Getting the day of the week your son went missing (to never return), wrong by two days, is disconcerting to say the least. This is even after recently being grilled by the police about events of those days. I would have thought that over the years they would have become very used to issuing appeals for people to try to remember if they were in the area on the day Steven went missing, and to me it seems as if that quest hasn't been maintained or is no longer important to them.

I noticed back in 2010 Steven's mother was saying the same thing about slapping him if he returned. "She admits to being angry over what he has put the family through and jokes about giving him "a cuddle first and a slap later" if he ever came home." It looks very much like a rehearsed statement to me. Perhaps holding on to an answer to the same question that is going to be asked 10+ years down the line? Clark, Steven December 1992

Middlesborough played away at Everton (150 miles away from Marske) on Saturday 26th Dec 1992. Everton v Middlesbrough, 1992/93 | Premier League

Middlesborough played at home (20 minute drive away from Marske) against Crystal Palace on Monday 28th Dec 1992. Kick off was at 3pm. Middlesbrough v Crystal Palace, 1992/93 | Premier League

I kind of get that slap and a cuddle. Years ago, when my nephew was about 2 1/2 my sister noticed him just in the nick of time climbing on a table to climb over the balcony railing, one floor up. She grabbed him and crushed him in a hug, then smacked him, her crying so much she scared him. I can see that.

 

[branmuffin]

Disability Benefits weren't introduced in the UK until 1992, the year Steven disappeared.

Which might be the reason his dad asked him to pay for his own football ticket.

 

[branmuffin]

I seem to remember someone here saying that women tend to take longer in the loo than us men. So let's assume he came out before her, why didn't he wait for her? Unless the grey-haired man, if there was one, persuaded him to go somewhere with him. Quite plausible.

Maybe they quarreled on their walk, maybe about a girl, maybe about his quest for more freedom, and he walked off in a huff like people tend to do when they are annoyed with someone.

Based on the evidence, flimsy at best, I think it is egregious what LE has put these people through. I know the police force went through some rough times in the recent past with corrupt officials and mass firings but you don't straighten out years of less than stellar policing by victimizing victims using paltry evidence like a 25 year old anonymous letter they dusted off.

Who knows, they may be guilty as sin. But you need evidence and they ain't got any, IMO.

I would sue them if it was me.

 

[HongKongPhooey]

Maybe they quarreled on their walk, maybe about a girl, maybe about his quest for more freedom, and he walked off in a huff like people tend to do when they are annoyed with someone.

Based on the evidence, flimsy at best, I think it is egregious what LE has put these people through. I know the police force went through some rough times in the recent past with corrupt officials and mass firings but you don't straighten out years of less than stellar policing by victimizing victims using paltry evidence like a 25 year old anonymous letter they dusted off.

Who knows, they may be guilty as sin. But you need evidence and they ain't got any, IMO.

I would sue them if it was me.

I'm on the fence with this. After the fiasco created by the Weirside Jack letter in the Yorkshire Ripper case, I really dont think LE would take a letter on face value. I feel there must have been some kind of additional follow up information which led to the arrests. I could be totally wrong.