IMPORTANT information about a rough sleeper found dead in a tent may have been deleted or lost fears a campaigner.

Former rough sleeper Hugo Sugg fears key details about Cardon Banfield and other homeless people cannot now be retrieved following the decommission of the LinkUp database in 2014.

The shared database contained personal and 'sensitive personal data' about rough sleepers, some of it highly sensitive, including names, dates of birth, national insurance numbers, criminal convictions, sexual orientation and medical information.

Yet Worcester City Council, which had access to the information, says it never held the data while Worcestershire County Council, which commissioned the service, has not been able to shed light on the whereabouts of the data, how it is stored or even if it still exists.

The LinkUp service was wound up when money from the supporting people programme was cut by the county council in March 2014.

As previously reported, the body of 74-year-old Mr Banfield was discovered in a tent by Worcestershire County Cricket Club on July 5 last year.

He was so badly decomposed he could only be identified from his DNA. A coroner recorded an open conclusion at his inquest last October.

Mr Sugg issued a Freedom of Information request to Worcester City Council asking for the archive displaying Mr Banfield's basic information but the city council replied that they did not hold the information and no longer had access.

Mr Sugg believes the information would show Mr Banfield's needs and contacts before his death so vital lessons can be learned. He also believes the deletion of such information would be in breach of data protection rules which stipulates such information should be kept for six and in some cases 10 years.

He added: “Where is this information? Who holds or held it?

"The discovery of the data breach completely shocked me. Just when I thought there couldn’t be anything else in this heartbreaking saga - we discover that Cardon’s details, including any possible health or mental health conditions, can’t now be retrieved.

“LinkUp is a distant memory, Cardon’s details have sadly gone but the memory and legacy of Cardon will never leave us: We are closer to getting Justice For Cardon and will not stop until he has not died in vain.”

A spokesperson for Worcester City Council said: “Homeless LinkUp was a shared data service, used by organisations across Worcestershire who worked with single homeless people.

"The contract for the service was administered by Worcestershire County Council, so the data did not belong to Worcester City Council.”

A county council spokesperson said: "We take any allegation of the breach of the Data Protection Act very seriously and will investigate the matter on direct receipt of the allegation."