The family of a missing Scots kayaker are facing an anxious wait to find out if a body washed up on a beach in the Balearic Islands is him.
We told how Kenny McPherson vanished after leaving Torreviaja Marina, in Spain’s Costa Blanca, on November 23 last year in a kayak.
The off-shore survey engineer's disappearance sparked a major police and coastguard search.
Aberdeen-born Kenny's frantic wife Alexandra Mitchell and his stepchildren Anna Mitchell, 22, and Alexander, 27, flew to the Costa Blanca to help in the search.
But now that a body was recovered 140 miles away on the holiday island of Formentera, DNA tests are being carried out to check if it is Kenny.
Reports in Spain say the authorities there have confirmed the body to be Kenny but his family are still waiting for official confirmation.
His stepdaughter Anna said his family had been told by the Foreign Office that DNA tests on the body found in Formentera would take around a week to come back.
Kenny had flown to Spain earlier in November to spend a few weeks at his holiday home near the resort of Torrevieja.
At the time Anna said: “We are obviously very concerned for my stepdad’s wellbeing as he’s been missing now for a week.
“We’ve discounted this being a voluntary disappearance. There’s no reason why he would have wanted to go missing.
“When we got flights over and arrived at the house, we found everything had been left just as if he had popped out to the shops or something.
“My mum said he had kayaked when they had been abroad with a tutor but on this particular occasion he had decided he wanted to do a bit by himself.
“He had purchased a kayak in Spain and been out on the Friday before he went missing just down the road from where he was last seen.
“We were unaware he was going to go out on the Saturday again.”
A land, sea and air search was organised at the time.
The weather conditions were good when Kenny, full name Kenneth Dallas McPherson, left the marina but turned bad later in the day.
A spokesman for the Civil Guard in the Balearic Islands confirmed: “The results of the DNA tests are not back yet.
“We believe the man whose body was found on Formentera last Friday is that of the British man last seen leaving Torrevieja Marina by kayak last November.
“However official confirmation is still dependent on the results of the DNA tests.”
