A FATHER-OF-FOUR says he is ‘fed up’ of being woken up by police knocking on his door looking for a missing man.

Tassawar Mahmood and his family moved into the house in William Street, Nelson, around three months ago but he said police had made regular visits to the property at weekends, looking for a previous occupant who often goes missing.

Police have now apologised for the visits and said they had ‘taken steps’ to remove the address from the records.

Mr Mahmood said: “They come pretty much every weekend and it is always at really bad hours, at 2am, 3am and 4am.

“We’ve got four children, three are under three years of age, and when somebody is knocking on the door at that time they are waking up.

“It’s then really difficult to calm them down and to get them back off to sleep.

“Every time the police come and ask for somebody called Phil.

“I always explain that we have moved in and he doesn’t live here any more.

“They say they will make a note and it won’t happen again, but then the next weekend it is happening again.

“I’ve said that if it continues to happen then I will have to make an official complaint.

“It seems no matter what we see they are still coming round looking for somebody who we have never met, and who doesn’t live here any more.”

A police spokesman said: “We visited this address on a number of occasions as part of inquiries to try and find a missing man who had previously lived there. We apologise for the inconvenience caused to the current occupants of this house and we have taken steps to ensure that this address has now been removed from the missing persons records.”