A MURDER case, in which a man was found mutilated in the lake at Potters Bar Golf Club, is to be reviewed 64 years after his disappearance.

After pressure from the Potters Bar Edition, police revealed this week the unsolved murder is to be looked at again by detectives.

Railwayman Albert Welch, 45, bade farewell to his wife Phyllis in November 1948 in a note where he wrote: “I have gone for a walk.

“Shan’t be home for tea.”

The Cranborne Crescent, Potters Bar, resident’s severed hand was discovered, in the lake on the seventh hole of the Darkes Lane course in May the following year, by a boy looking for golf balls.

The lake was dredged and the rest of his chopped up remains were found piece by piece.

Further gruesome discoveries were the hacksaw used to cut him up and that his head was partially burned before being tossed into the water.

At first, Phyllis refused to believe the remains were her husband’s, who was known to railway workmates as ‘Snakey’, but a plaster cast fitted his boots and a fingerprint was found which matched Mr Welch’s.

At the time of the murder Potters Bar was under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police.

And, in pledging to revisit the original investigation, a Met spokeswoman told the Potters Bar Edition: “A review of the available evidence in relation to the unsolved murder of Albert Welch in 1947 is being carried out by SCD1 – the homicide and serious crime command.

“As with all unsolved cases, any potential new lines of enquiry will be carefully assessed.”

Documents on the case – housed at the National Archives in Kew – have been restricted for 75 years and are not due to be declassified until 2031.

But the Potters Bar Edition has applied to get the files reopened under the Freedom of Information Act.

A spokeswoman for the National Archives said: “Government files are usually closed for 30 years.

“But if they contain personal data or sensitive information pertaining to identifiable individuals (or their relatives) who may still be alive, they will remain closed for longer periods such as 75 or even 100 years under the Data Protection Act.”

WH Times