A fresh police investigation has been ordered into the death of a young bar manager in mysterious circumstances on the Isles of Scilly.
Josh Clayton, 23, went missing after a party on the privately owned island of Tresco and his body washed up on a nearby uninhabited island 11 days later.
An inquest into his death heard from his family that he may have been pushed into the water and concerns were expressed by them about the police inquiry.
On the third day of the inquest in Plymouth, the coroner Ian Arrow halted the proceedings after a witness said Clayton, from Taunton in Somerset, had been involved in a scuffle at the party with some Polish or Hungarian men.
Arrow said the witness had to be reinterviewed by police and added: “I would invite Devon and Cornwall police to share their files with the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service].”
The barrister for Clayton’s family, Tom Leeper, said they wanted the case referred to the director of public prosecutions.
He described the police investigation as “inadequate”, adding: “The family very regretfully has no confidence in the ability of Devon and Cornwall police to conduct an effective investigation.”
Leeper said the force treated it as a missing persons inquiry rather than as a criminal investigation. “There was substantial evidence of criminality on the night in question,” he said.
The barrister said as well as the supposed scuffle, there was an allegation that a sexual assault took place and that drugs were used at the party.
Clayton vanished in the early hours of 13 September 2015. His body was found washed up on the small island of Tean by a French yachtsman.
The cause of death was “unascertained”, but the pathologist Dr Russell Delaney had said it was possible Clayton had been pushed into the sea.
Delaney also said he could have fallen or walked into the water, or been lying on a beach and washed out by the incoming tide.
