CANADIAN police are investigating the shock death of Golborne wrestling hero Davey Boy Smith.

They have answered an appeal from the British Bulldog's distraught father, Sid Smith, who called for a murder probe after hearing conflicting reports of the circumstances surrounding his 39-years-old son's death while on a short break in British Columbia.

He does not accept that his super fit son, who was shortly due to go back into the ring after a two year break, died of natural causes.

He said this week that Davey was with his girlfriend, Andrea Hart, and her five children to sort out problems when he died, but that there were conflicting accounts of what happened.

While one told that he died of a heart attack, another said he choked on a bone, one said he drowned in a swimming pool and another that he died in bed.

Mr Smith, 63, of Caunce Avenue, Golborne, said he was particularly perturbed that he had heard that a dubious friend of Davey's , who had been involved in the drugs world and who had served a jail sentence, appeared on the holiday.

He said: "I just can't believe my son's death was natural, but if a post mortem examination finds drugs in his body he didn't put them there. He was clean. He had taken steroids in the past but gave them up years ago. I would have known if he did because he told me everything.

"It seems to me that there is some kind of cover-up and I'm not happy."

Mr Smith revealed that there is also confusion over his request to leave his son's body intact, and he wants to know why a two hour round trip to collect it from the hospital mortuary to take it back to his Calgary home had taken 10 hours.

He said he had at first agreed with Davey's two teenage children, Harry and Georgia, that his body should be cremated, but that he now wants it returned for an investigation to be carried out here.

Arrangements are underway to bring him home for burial next to his mum, Joyce, and sister, Tracey, in the village's All Saints' RC Church cemetery.