A senior citizen’s skeletal remains were found in his home six years after his death, according to reports published Friday.
Robert Alton, who is believed to have been 70 when he died, was discovered inside his apartment in Bolton, England on March 9 after his landlord obtained a court order to enter the property and check the gas supply, The Mirror reported. It’s believed that Alton died in May 2017, meaning some six years have passed since anyone checked on him.
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The property was managed by the housing association Bolton at Home, which manages and maintains some 18,000 properties across the region, Manchester Evening News reported. The firm’s CEO Noel Sharpe said in a statement that “it’s completely unacceptable to us that something like this has happened,” admitting that his company should have done more to check Alton’s welfare.
“The reason we didn’t discover Robert’s death for so long is because our previous procedure, while meeting legal requirements, wasn’t strong enough to prevent something like this happening,” Sharpe continued. He further noted that the procedure for ensuring gas safety checks changed in July 2022. (RELATED: Decomposing Body Reportedly Found With Biohazard Material, Possible Weapons Of Mass Destruction Plan)
Alton was a retired bookkeeper, and his death is not being treated as suspicious, the Telegraph noted. His body was found at the top of the stairs in his first-floor (second story in the U.S.) stairs. No one noticed that he hadn’t paid council tax since the time of his suspected death.