WHEN Englishman Paul Lachlan was found dead inside his well-to-do seaside apartment at Manly last year police began a routine background check to inform his relatives and to prepare a report for the NSW coroner.

That’s when the problems began, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Immigration couldn’t find any trace of a Paul Lachlan having ever entered Australia from England in the ’90s. In fact they couldn’t find any travel documents or a passport supporting his story told over the years that he migrated from Manchester in the mid-1990s.

Investigators soon discovered no such person as Paul Lachlan had existed and that the man living by his name had gone to extraordinary lengths to live under the radar.

“We are trying to establish the man’s real identity,’’ Manly crime manager detective Chief Inspector Craig Wonders said.

“As far as we can ascertain he has no bank accounts, driver’s ­licence or any government documentation at all.’’

In his affects all police found was a medicare card in the name of Lachlan and a membership card for a defunct gym.

“It appears he paid for everything in cash as he had no credit cards or eftpos facilities that we can establish,’’ Insp Wonders said.

Working backwards police have been able to establish that the man calling himself Paul Lachlan worked at Lifeline from 1995 to 2001 and then for a few years as a furniture removalist on the northern beaches. They believe he is aged about 45 or 46.

“For the past six years he has been unemployed and has had no visible means of support yet he lived with a flatmate in a well-to-do area of Manly.’’

The pair had been involved ­initially but had existed as flat mates for the past few years with Lachlan contributing to the rent.

There is nothing to suggest that he was ever involved in any criminal activity in Australia but police have no idea of who he was before he worked for Lifeline in 1995.