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Net closes on brutal North Shields killers

Mar 7 2010 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

MORE than a dozen calls have been made to cops on the trail of killers who beat a dad to death, police have revealed.

Andrew Smart’s body was found covered in blood in his flat in North Shields, North Tyneside, by neighbours last Sunday evening, after they noticed his front door had been left open.

A post-mortem revealed he died of multiple injuries.

Ever since, detectives have been trying to trace the 47-year-old’s final movements and last week turned to 21st century technology.

Police, who believe the alcoholic was being tormented by local teenagers in the weeks before his death, have put up posters and are now using a Bluetooth transmitter to send a text to all phones within a 60m radius of his home in a bid for information.

The message asks anyone who knows any teenagers who visited Andrew at his flat in Sibthorpe Street to call police immediately and a text-line has been launched to make it easier for youngsters to get in touch.

Originally from Tynemouth, Andrew left the North East to study and married a woman elsewhere in the country.

They had two children, and were happily married until Andrew, who had been a self-employed software engineer, stopped working and started to drink.

After the marriage broke down he returned North but he had only lived in Sibthorpe Street since after Christmas.

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