Reward to identify body on Bognor seafront

The cash is being offered in a bid to solve the case of Marek Pudlowski, who was discovered dead on a bench four months ago.

The force is offering 5,000 for information leading to a breakthrough as investigating officers believe vital evidence has yet to emerge from the town's Eastern European community.

Police have handed out leaflets in Bognor Regis town centre publicising the reward and will also be stepping up work on the case, known as Operation Langton, with a poster campaign.

The renewed appeal has been issued with translations in Russian and Polish.

Discovered by pier

Mr Pudlowski, 51, who had lived at Bassett Road in Bognor Regis, was discovered by a resident near the pier on the morning of August 3.

A murder enquiry was immediately launched by Sussex Police's major crime branch after a post mortem revealed he had suffered serious bruising to his upper body.

Extensive enquiries have been carried out and detectives working on Operation Langton have worked closely with the Polish and Eastern European communities within Bognor Regis.

Detective Chief Inspector Steve Johns, who is leading the inquiry, said he was 'confident someone out there has the information we are looking for' and hoped the reward would lead to a decisive resolution of the case.

Open view

He said officers were keeping an open-minded view over theories as to the motive for the murder.

He confirmed that CCTV footage recovered from HSBC bank in Bognor Regis which was released to the public had shown Mr Pudlowski to have been in a severely-injured state.

He had also been captured by other cameras within the town centre.

But a gap of several hours remains surrounding his whereabouts several hours prior to his death which is likely to prove critical to the case.

DCI Johns said: "Over the last four months officers have worked tirelessly to try to establish what happened to Marek on the morning of August 3 and to bring his killers to justice.

Search for information

"Despite a lot of publicity and numerous people coming forward with information, we have been unable to arrest or charge anyone with Marek's murder.

"I want the local communities to be aware that this is still very much an open and on-going investigation, and we are hoping that by offering a reward it will encourage someone to come forward with information that holds the key to what happened,"

He added: "We have offered rewards before for cases and though it is not a normal thing for us to do with an investigation, money can be a great driver.

"People can contact us anonymously about this and we will do our best to protect any information that is provided to us."

Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 0845 6070 999 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

What do you think? Send a letter to [email protected] or leave a comment below.

Click here to go back to Chichester news

Click here to go back to Bognor Regis news

Click here to go back to Midhurst and Petworth news

To tell us where in the world you are reading this story click here to add yourself to our readers' map.