A campaigner is stepping up his bid for justice for a pub landlord implicated in the infamous "torso trial" miscarriage of justice.

Reg Dudley and Bob Maynard were cleared last year of two gruesome gangland killings in the Seventies. But the verdict came too late for Brighton landlord Oliver Kenny, whose name was wrongly dragged into the case by key prosecution witness Anthony Wild.

John Bray, of Rumbolds Lane, Haywards Heath, campaigned for years for Dudley and Maynard to be cleared.

He now wants official recognition of the innocence of Mr Kenny, who died of liver failure in October 1977, four months after Dudley and Maynard were jailed.

Mr Bray is appealing for any information about Mr Kenny's son, who was aged about ten at the time of the trial.

Mr Bray said: "Oliver Kenny was the third victim of the case. We cannot bring him back but his son could help restore his good name."

Police investigations began when underworld figure Billy Moseley's body was washed up in Essex on October 5, 1974.

Bank robber Micky Cornwall's body was found in woodland in Hertfordshire on September 7, 1975. He had been shot in the head.

Wild, an armed robber from Hove, claimed Dudley had taken Moseley's head into Mr Kenny's pub, the Horse and Groom in Brighton. According to Wild, the landlord almost fainted when the head was placed in the bar.

The tale prompted rumours the head was thrown into the sea at Brighton. Wild's story was disproved when the real head was discovered in north London, six weeks after Dudley and Maynard were convicted.

The skull was covered by a plastic bag and wrapped in a copy of The Evening News dated June 16, 1977, a day the jury had spent considering their verdict.

It had been kept in a freezer for three years. But the discovery did not lead to the case being reopened and a traumatised Mr Kenny drank himself to death.

He had been prevented from giving evidence in the trial by bail conditions imposed after he was arrested in November 1976 over a jewellery robbery in London.

Mr Bray said: "Oliver Kenny raised a lot of money for charity through his pub. He never had a criminal conviction of any kind."

Wild admitted in 1980 he had invented the Brighton pub story.

Anyone with information about Mr Kenny's son should contact John Bray on 01444 457528.