Video of missing Ashfield man: Son makes emotional appeal

The son of a vulnerable man who went missing more than two weeks ago is issuing an emotional appeal to help find him.
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Michael Dennington was reported missing from the Mansfield area on Sunday 31 May. The attached CCTV footage is the last official sighting of him obtained from King’s Mill Hospital, Sutton-in-Ashfield, as he left at around 3.24pm on Tuesday 26 May.

His son Jason Taylor (also pictured) only recently got back in touch with him having been estranged from him for around 14 years. He said: "I was really enjoying my seeing my dad again. He'd been back in my life for around five weeks where we would speak on the phone around three times a week and I'd see him about two times a week."

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Michael has mental health issues and spends time sleeping rough and sofa-surfing but his son Jason says it's unusual for him not to speak to friends or family for this length of time.

Michael DenningtonMichael Dennington
Michael Dennington

"Clearly he's a colourful character and not without his difficulties but he's very sociable with friends and family all over the place who he would often speak to and visit," he said.

Michael is 58 years old and described as being of a slim build, 5ft 2ins tall with dark brown, short hair. He was last seen wearing grey jogging bottoms, white trainers and a black waist-length jacket.

Jason said the last time he saw him was Sunday 24 May, two days before he went missing.

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He added: "From what I've known of him so far, he's usually a happy and outgoing character, so when I last saw him in the morning at my girlfriend's house in Kirkby, he didn't seem very good. He was pacing around and seemed anxious and upset. A friend came to pick him up but we know he didn’t stay with her long and then it wasn’t long before he ended up at King’s Mill Hospital."

Nottinghamshire Police’s Missing From Home Team has been working alongside detectives to carry out enquiries. Officers have also been working alongside the force's specialist search teams who have been conducting searches in the vicinity but so far there have been no indication of his whereabouts.

Jason says his mind wanders from one extreme to the other.

"Sometimes I think that he's ok, he just doesn't want to be found. He'd been going through some relationship difficulties and maybe he just wanted some time out and is lying low somewhere. Then I think that perhaps he has fallen into some difficulty. He's always thinking about his family and I know that he wouldn't purposefully do something to upset us," he said.

Michael has links to several of the neighbouring towns and villages including Newark, Selston, Ollerton, Cliptsone, Worksop, Kirkby and Sutton-in-Ashfield, and also further afield in Cleethorpes, Glossop and Derby.

If you have seen Michael or know where he might be, please call us on 101, quoting incident number 758 of 31 May 2020. You can also call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.