MAKING the headlines today was the grisly tale of a Blackburn murder after a man was found battered to death in a pawnbroker’s shop in Eanam.

Police discovered the body of Fred Gallagher in the early hours of the morning after he failed to return home on Friday evening.

At a press conference, the Chief Constable Richard Bibby announced he had called in Scotland Yard to lead the inquiries.

PC Les Bolton went to the shop in the early hours of the morning to check on Mr Gallagher’s whereabouts and found the front door unlocked. In a back downstairs room, which contained a pledge counter and safe, he found his body lying on the floor.

Said Mr Bibby: “There were signs of a struggle and the safe, which contained some silver cash, was open. Presumably other money is missing from it.

“We have been checking lodging houses and other places.”

Police officers later went to a brick works at Eccleshill, Darwen, where a man had been seen stuffing articles of clothing into a pipe, before boarding a bus.

The pawn shop at Eanam belonged to J Fielding Ltd and Fred Fielding, managing director said: “There would have been a lot of money in the shop on a Friday night.”

Mr Gallagher, who lived in Unity Street, Blackburn, before moving to Blackpool in 1959, was a regular at Blackburn greyhound track.