Detectives in Blackpool have named a youth whose headless, dismembered body was found in a rubbish bin outside a seaside hotel on Tuesday.

He was Christopher Hartley, a 17-year-old from Burnley in Lancashire. He had worked at the Pleasure Beach for around six months during the summer, but had been redundant since the end of the season.

The police say they are treating it as a murder inquiry, but they say they do not yet know how he died - the dismemberment seems to have taken place after his death.

They say he contacted his family on Christmas Day and was seen alive a few hours before his body was found. They are appealing for information and conducting house-to-house inquiries.

Detective Superintendent, Paul Buschini, said: "We shall be attempting to discover the location at which the body was dismembered and the circumstances in which he met his death."

A spokewoman for the hotel says the discovery caused disruption for its residents (17")

The body was discovered on Tuesday by a worker at the New Central Hotel in Blackpool, Lancashire. Police have ruled out any connection with the hotel.

Two parts of the body, including the torso, were concealed in bin bags at the rear of the building in Reads Avenue.

Police immediately sealed off the area as a Home Office pathologist, Dr Edmund Tapp, conducted a postmortem examination.

Blackpool has a large transient population of young people who come looking for work and end up sleeping in hostels or even on the street.
 

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