THE mystery surrounding the identity of a man washed up on a County Durham beach may never be solved.

The badly-decomposed remains were discovered by a man walking his dog on a beach near East Shore Village, at Seaham, on the morning of Saturday, May 13, last year.

But yesterday, almost a year since the body was found, police said they had taken the investigation as far as they could.

The body was lying on the sand among rocks, in an area that would normally be covered by the sea at high tide.

The man was naked apart from a pair of black or dark grey slipper socks and his left shoe.

The shoe was a size 11 (European size 45), leather, Spanish brand Camper, and reddish-brown in colour.

A post-mortem examination revealed the man was white, 5ft 11in, of average build, and aged between 40 and 60. He was suffering from severe heart disease.

He was thought to have died several weeks earlier and, although the cause of death could not be established, there were no injuries to suggest foul play.

The man had lost 11 teeth, eight of them on his bottom jaw.

Because of the decomposition, no facial features or fingerprints were able to help with identification.

A DNA profile was obtained and analysed, but no match was found against the national database. Inquiries abroad also drew a blank.

A plaster reconstruction of the man's head and face, created by Dr Caroline Wilkinson, a senior lecturer in forensic anthropology at Dundee University, generated only a small number of calls to the police.

Detective Inspector Kevin Langan said yesterday: "The file on this case will remain open until this man is identified, but realistically we have taken the investigation as far as we can.

"Unless we get a major breakthrough, it looks increasingly as though the mystery may never be solved.''

Anyone with any information regarding the identity of the man is asked to call 0845-60-60-365 ext 6702611 or contact the National Mission Persons Helpline on 0500-700700.