Australia agrees to inquest on Briton missing since 1970

Billy Day was 23 when he sailed to Australia on a £10 assisted passage in 1969. He planned to work his way around the country and then return to England. But a year after landing in Perth, he vanished.

Thirty-two years later, Australian authorities have finally agreed to hold an inquest, which Mr Day's family hope will shed light on his fate. Due to be held in Sydney later this month, it will hear that the Briton disappeared after meeting a man who went on to carry out Australia's most audacious extortion.

In a letter to his family in Ipswich in 1970, Mr Day told them he was heading to Brisbane in a camper van with an English friend, Peter Brown. They never heard from him again. Police assumed he was one of countless foreigners who arrive in Australia and lose touch with relatives.

Brown's real name was Peter Macari. In May 1971, he telephoned the Australian airline Qantas and said there was a bomb aboard a Boeing 747 that was en route between Sydney and Hong Kong. He threatened to activate it unless he was paid A$500,000 (then £234,000), and said an identical bomb was hidden in a locker at Sydney airport.

Army experts found the airport bomb, which they said was capable of blowing up a plane. Qantas paid the ransom in A$20 notes, a decision made without consulting police. Macari then telephoned again and said there was no bomb on the 747.

Police found a third of the ransom money hidden in an old butcher's shop in Sydney. Macari and his Australian boyfriend, Raymond Poynting, were arrested and pleaded guilty. Macari was deported to Britain after serving nine years of a 15-year term.

It was only when Mr Day's parents, Jim and Betty, read a newspaper report about Macari's release that they realised he was the man referred to in their son's letter. When interviewed by Australian police, who flew to Britain at the family's request, Macari denied having met Mr Day. In fact, he virtually assumed Mr Day's identity before he was arrested, buying a Jaguar and plane tickets and opening bank accounts in his name.

Mr Day's family are convinced he was murdered because he found out about the extortion plot. However, police never found enough evidence to charge Macari.

Jim Day died last year, aged 80, without finding out what happened to his son. Billy's brothers, Trevor and Tony, who have carried on the search begun by their parents, want the mystery solved for the sake of their 79-year-old mother. "She's waited 30 years and deserves to know one way or the other," said Trevor, who lives in Perth.

Tony Day, who lives in Ipswich, remembers his brother as quiet and hard-working. "Bill was a good boxer too, so he could certainly handle himself," he said. Billy travelled to Australia with a friend, David Burt. They explored Western Australia for six months, then split up. Macari arrived in Australia a few months later on a false passport, having served jail terms in Britain for stealing cars and possessing unlicensed guns. A friend of Macari's, Ivan Jay, later told police that Mr Day had been dropped off in Brisbane to go his own way.

The extortion case was later made into an Australian film called Mr Brown.

The coroner has decided not to call Macari, now 67 and living in Hampshire. Tony Day hopes the inquest may prompt witnesses to come forward. He said: "Somebody knows something. You don't just vanish off the face of the Earth."