Police in the north of Scotland have solved the six-month "man with no name" mystery.

Forces throughout the UK and Interpol were contacted after stonemasons restoring Old Inverlochy Castle at Fort William found a man hanging from scaffolding last September.

There was no written identification on the body and his clothing carried no clues to his identity.

Detectives said he had gone to considerable lengths to conceal his identity.

The National Missing Persons Bureau in London produced a computer-generated photograph of the man, based on a picture taken of his body.

But there was no positive response despite the picture being circulated to the media in the hope that someone would recognised him.

Lincolnshire link

Police in the Highlands began to believe that the man might be foreign.

But within the last few weeks Lincolnshire Police contacted their Fort William colleagues and a positive identification was made.

He was Peter Sharpe, 56, who stayed in the Lincoln area before he disappeared last August.

Mr Sharpe was divorced from his wife who are in Australia with his daughter and where he lived for approximately 20 years prior to his return to the UK in 1995.

Police say he appears to have suffered from personal and mental problems resulting in him taking his own life.

He had disposed of all obvious means ot identification and had drastically changed his appearance by removing his spectacles and shaving off his beard

Head of Lochaber police division Chief Inspector John Gourlay said: "This has been a long and difficult inquiry, but happily we have had a successful conclusion.

"This sort of difficulty can happen when a person who lives alone disappears."