Described as the oldest open case on the books of the Metropolitan Police, Mary Flanagan was a London teenager who disappeared from her West Ham home on New Year's Eve 1959.

On the day of her disappearance, she was due to attend her employer's New Year's Eve party, which was held annually in the Silvertown plant. The last known sighting of her was approaching West Ham tube station.

The following day, her family realised she had not come home the preceding evening, and Mr and Mrs Flanagan visited the sugar refinery in search of information.

In a curious twist, they were informed that she had actually been absent from work for the previous fortnight.

Mary Flanagan may have eloped with a man she had been seen with frequently in the last few weeks of 1959. He was supposedly another Irish immigrant and may have worked in the ...