The police fugitive who lived under the floorboards of his Wigan home for nearly eight years

And this year marks 40 years since Norman Green was found to have been living under the floorboards of his Ince sitting room for seven and a half years in a bid to evade the police.

Back in 1974, the then 36-year-old had been arrested and quizzed by police regarding allegations of an alleged offence at the home of an 86-year-old woman.

After questioning he was released.

But he was so frightened about his predicament that, when he returned home to find a police car outside his address in West Street, Higher Ince, two days later, that he went on the run.

After shivering in bushes for three days in Walmesley Park without food or water in the December rain he realised he could not abandon his wife and children.

So he went home in the middle of the night and hid in the shed for a week while spouse Pauline sneaked him cups of tea and sandwiches.

Eventually, he plucked up the courage to go back into the house and hid in a cupboard for three days. With council workmen carrying out renovation work, there was a danger of his being discovered there, so he then sought refuge inside the settee after hollowing it out from behind. During this time police made repeated visits asking where he had gone and one officer even once poked the settee with a stick while Mr Green was inside it.

It was while a resident of the sofa that a longer-term plan formed in the fugitive’s mind. He said after his discovery: “I started to make a hole in the floorboards with a penknife.

“There was a gap about 2ft wide between the floorboards and the concrete floor. It was about 6ft long. That was where I lived, without coming out at all for the first two years. I just lay on the concrete floor, never seeing daylight or any other human being but Pauline.”

His wife passed him food and drink, but his tomb-like bolthole was beginning to have an adverse effect on his health and his weight plummeted to seven stones. He said it was also terrible lying there listening to his six children playing just inches above him.

After two years he began to emerge when no-one else was around and was confronted in the mirror by a straggly-haired and bearded Robinson Crusoe figure. However, while incarcerated he would wear his wife’s old clothes in case any visitors wondered why there were men’s clothes around the house.

He began to see the children again, but they were always out of the room when he came out from under the floorboards so they never knew where he was hiding. He was rumbled once – by three-year-old Kristian Coates who saw the Fagin-like Mr Green in the lounge playing with some of his children. But despite telling his family, no-one believed him!

It was only in March 1982 when police responded to a neighbour’s tip-off that the game was up.

Mr Green’s first words were “Thank God it’s over.”

He was never prosecuted for the alleged offence for which he was originally arrested, but the story of his self-imposed imprisonment hit every tabloid front page in the land.

What later became of Mr Green, we are not sure. An appeal for him to contact the Wigan media, or for people who knew of his whereabouts to get in touch, was made several years ago, but it came to nothing.

If he is still alive he would be 82 now. If anyone knows what happened to Mr Green, please email [email protected], message our Wigan Today Facebook page or ring 01942 918601.