Ramblers find missing doctor's body in remote Lake District cave

The search for a paediatrician who has been missing since he walked out of a hospital seven months ago ended yesterday when police recovered his body from a remote cave in the Lake District.

The remains of Dr Richard Stevens were found by walkers behind rubble in an abandoned slate mine 1,000 metres up the Old Man of Coniston, at Coniston Water. Identifiable by his wallet and summerweight clothes, Dr Stevens' body had been in the cave for months. He appears to have injected himself with a lethal quantity of drugs.

In a statement, his wife Eirwen, 54, and their three children, Jonathan, 30, Rebecca, 27, and Helen, 19, expressed their loss. "Over the last six months we have tried to remain positive and always believed he was still alive," they said. "We are absolutely devastated."

In recent months, the search for Dr Stevens, 54, had centred on the Lake District, which was one of his great passions. Police checked B&Bs and guesthouses in Windermere, Ambleside and Grasmere, and Mrs Stevens made inquiries in Ambleside, where they had often holidayed together.

But he had sought out a place where no one would find him: a quarter of a mile from the nearest footpath in open fell land and with an entrance barely visible from a distance of 50 metres, according to mountain rescue teams.

He was found by ramblers on Tuesday in a low, 200-metre wide cavern at the end of a 75-metre tunnel. The remains were taken to Furness General Hospital in Carlisle where they will be formally identified by DNA within a week. A post-mortem examination will take place tomorrow and the death has been referred to the Kendal coroner, who will hold an inquest. Police said the death was not thought to be an accident, but there were no suspicious circumstances.

Dr Stevens had been missing since 21 July when he woke to his usual 6.38am alarm call, kissed his wife on the forehead and left for his work as a consultant haematologist at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital in Pendlebury, Salford. "Bye love, see you later," he said, and then drove away from their home in Sale, Greater Manchester.

CCTV cameras recorded Dr Stevens entering the hospital at 7.10am. He went to his office, placed his briefcase on the floor, his security pass on his desk and his jacket over the back of his chair. But then he vanished. His Audi remained in its usual car parking space.

Publicity about his disappearance led to an abundance of reported sightings. He was supposedly seen on a train to London Euston, and hitchhiking in Devon. Police were also convinced that a man pictured by CCTV cameras at Liverpool John Lennon airport was the missing doctor.

Dr Stevens' family believe that the strain of work, worsened by a weekend on call, is the key to his actions.

In a local radio interview last weekend, Mrs Stevens said: "He had had an extremely stressful weekend. Something happened to him on that Monday morning that just said 'I cannot take this any more' and something in his brain switched off.

"He's thought to himself 'Where am I? - I don't know where I am!', and he's got out of the nearest exit, which isn't too far from his office, and then he just wandered."

Psychologists said Dr Stevens' actions were consistent with dissociative fugue, a rare syndrome triggered by stress or trauma, which can last for months. Dr Keith Ashcroft, a forensic psychologist, explained: "The brain just disengages and the individuals lose all sense of who they are."

The National Missing Persons Helpline, which has had a case worker in weekly contact with Dr Stevens' family, said that twice as many men go missing as women.