Metropolitan Police undated handout photo of Mary Flanagan. A senior detective has appealed for the fiance of a woman at the centre of Scotland Yard's oldest unsolved missing persons case to come forward. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Friday May 31, 2013. Detective Chief Inspector Dave Rock is trying to trace Tom McGinty, who was engaged to 16-year-old Mary Flanagan when she went missing in 1959. She left her home in Wallace Road, West Ham, east London, to go to a new year's eve party and vanished. Mary said she was going to a party at Tate and Lyle where it is believed she worked at the time, but never arrived. See PA story POLICE Flanagan. Photo credit should read: Metropolitan Police /PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder.

A SENIOR detective is appealing for an Irish merchant seaman to come forward in a bid to close Scotland Yard's oldest unsolved missing persons case.

DCI Dave Rock is trying to trace Tom McGinty, who was engaged to Mary Flanagan (16) when she went missing in 1959.

She left her home in east London to go to a New Year's Eve party – and vanished.

Mary said she was going to a party at Tate and Lyle, where it is believed she worked, but never arrived.

FILES

DCI Rock said: "If Tom is still around, I would ask him to make himself known to me and let me know what happened at the time.

"We believe that Tom was an Irish seaman who was introduced to Mary by her father.

"That afternoon she walked out to go to a party and just disappeared into thin air."

Police believe Mr McGinty had been in the Merchant Navy. There are no files from the time to show whether he was interviewed in the wake of Mary's disappearance.

hnews@herald.ie