Missing man Nathan Cole found dead in canal, police say

A man who vanished nearly a month ago has been found dead in a north London canal, police have said.

Nathan Cole, 32, from Kensington, had not been seen since Saturday, January 21.

Mr Cole’s family launched multiple appeals in a bid to find him and police officers scoured Walthamstow’s marshes, reservoirs and waterways.

Police said they pulled an unresponsive man out of the canal near Tottenham marshes at 8.20am on Friday.

He was declared dead at the scene.

A statement from the Met said: “Officers were called to reports of an unresponsive man in the canal near Towpath Road, N18.

“Officers, the London Ambulance Service, and the London Fire Brigade attended and the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

“Formal identification will take place in due course, but officers believe that the man is Nathan Cole.

“We await the results of the specialist post-mortem examination to establish the cause of death.

“Nathan’s family have been notified and are being supported by specialist officers. We ask media to respect his family’s privacy at this time.

“A file will be prepared for the coroner.”

The night he went missing, Mr Cole had been planning to attend a gig at Koko, in Camden, but following an apparent change of plans he travelled to northeast London.

Mr Cole was last seen on CCTV walking along Banbury Road in Walthamstow, in the direction of the River Lee at 11.17pm on January 21.

The eldest of five siblings, Mr Cole lived with his mum in Kensington. But his family contacted police on Monday, January 23, when he failed to return home.

“We found it strange that it came to Sunday and he hadn’t come home,” his brother Luke Cole, 27, previously told the Standard.

“He would always come back on Sunday to prepare for work, so when we woke up on Monday and he hadn’t arrived back we knew something was very wrong.”

Mr Cole said Nathan, who graduated from the University of Bath with a masters in pharmacology, was enjoying his job at London School of Economics, which he had held for around six months.

His family had no concerns about his mental health prior to his disappearance.