A TRAWLERMAN has dredged up the skull of a missing friend - three years after he was lost at sea.

Brothers Robert Temple and Brian Allison disappeared on November 17, 2004, when their boat sank off the North Shields coast in rough weather.

But in a bizarre twist of fate, the brothers' friend and fellow trawlerman Barry Hunter dredged up a skull while fishing for prawns, which forensic tests have now proved is that of 27-year-old Mr Allison.

Unaware the remains were those of his friend of more than ten years, Mr Hunter, 58, of North Shields, handed the skull to police after making the discovery in December while trawling in the North Sea.

Yesterday, he described his shock at discovering that it was Mr Allison's skull.

"It was just a very eerie feeling to be standing there on your boat with a skull in your hand, and then you find out it's one of your mates who went missing all that time ago.

"When I first saw it, the thought did cross my mind for a split second that it could be Brian or Rob, but I just thought: 'What are the chances?'

"It's just completely unbelievable that it's turned out to be Brian."

Their mother Roseann had already resigned herself to the fact that both her boys died at sea after they went out in the 36ft Jann Denise II in November 2004, but said the news, broken to her on what would have been Robert's 37th birthday on Tuesday, has left the whole family stunned.

Speaking from her home in Fencehouses, Tyne and Wear, where she raised both Robert and Brian, the mother-of-six said: "It's like living November 17, 2004, all over again. It's heartbreaking.

"It's never gone away because we live it every day, but it was a real shock when the police came and said they had found part of Brian's skull.

"We're all devastated all over again, but at least I do feel some kind of closure.

"I'm pleased Brian has come home. At least now I will get to bury one of my boys.

"All I'm waiting for now is Robert to come back to me."

No remains of 37-year-old Mr Temple, a father-of-three, have ever been found.