Ann Mary Pickering: left home on her own

A farmer has told how he found the body of a 93-year-old woman after she went missing from a nursing home in Pocklington.

Farmer Henry Thirsk and his son made the grim discovery at the end of a two-day search for Mrs Ann Mary Pickering.

She had been missing since the previous afternoon when she left Wilberforce Lodge in Pocklington.

Police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding her death. Mrs

Pickering, who suffered from dementia, had often spoken of returning to her native Malton.

Officers carried out extensive searches involving helicopters and police dogs.

They were joined for hours by the Thirsk family from Groves Farm, in West Green,

Pocklington. "We were hoping to find her alive, but I am afraid it wasn't to be," said Mr Thirsk. "We were looking in all the buildings."

After searching the outbuildings, including the pheasant pens, he and his son moved to land at the back of the farm. They found the body of Mrs Pickering in a beck. John Kennedy, the general manager of Wilberforce Lodge, said: "The staff and management of Wilberforce Lodge would like to express their deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Mrs Ann Pickering who has died in tragic circumstances.

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