THE emotional funeral of an 81-year-old man found battered to death in his home was held yesterday.

Retired steelworker Colin Dunford was found dead by police in his terraced home in Leven Street, Middlesbrough.

Yesterday’s service at Teesside Crematorium told of a man who was kind, generous and gentle.

Former neighbour Ann Haze told the congregation of about 80 people in St Hilda’s Chapel a moving story of how Mr Dunford had helped her family.

Talking through tears, she said: “I used to live on Leven Street and my kids adored Colin. He would give them a £1 coin and a chocolate bar every day. If he didn’t see them, he’d push an envelope through the door.

“Just before Christmas, we got £200 through the door.

There was no name on the note, but I could match his writing and I took it round and said, ‘Colin, we can’t accept this money.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just the winter fuel allowance money, I’d rather the kids had a good Christmas’.”

The ceremony was conducted by the Reverend Stephen Liddle. He said Mr Dunford had worked nights as a steelworker for most of his working life and had lived in Leven Street, in different houses, all his life.

He would regularly go to Sainsbury’s, about a 15 or 20- minute walk away, for his shopping and every day would meet friends for a couple of pints at Samuelson’s Working men’s Club, just over the road from his home.

Mr Liddle said: “Colin was a real Middlesbrough man. He only left to do his national service, and then he was soon back home. He never called where he lived a house; it was a home. He treasured it and the modern appliances and comforts that he wouldn’t have had growing up as a boy.

“When we come to the circumstances of his death, the whole community has been saddened.”

Mr Dunford was last seen on the evening of Sunday, April 22. His body was found with head injuries at his home the next day. Police were unable to trace any living relatives.

􀁧 James Allen, 36, of Lothian Road, Middlesbrough, has been charged with Mr Dunford’s murder and that of Julie Davison, a 50-year-old charity worker from Whitby.