POLICE believe their prime suspect in an unsolved Brierley Hill murder might be being harboured by someone, an inquest heard.

Mansoor Mahmood, a 24-year-old of Bague Walk, died after he was stabbed outside Dixi Chicken diner in Brierley Hill High Street at around 4.45pm on October 15.

An inquest held at the Black Country Coroners Court in Oldbury yesterday (Monday, December 19), was told suspect Niron Parker-Lee, aged 19, could be being kept from police by “an individual”.

Detective Inspector Nigel Harrison, from West Midlands Police, said: “There is a suspect we have identified – Niron Parker-Lee – a young man who was a resident in that area.

“The only difficulty is that although we have identified Parker-Lee, we have not yet been able to apprehend him.

“There has been a media campaign in which we offered a Crimestoppers award, and we are trying to upgrade the media strategy to entice information from the community.

“There’s no reason to believe he has left the country. He doesn’t have a passport. But where he is at the moment we cannot say.

“There is the possibility that he is being harboured by an individual, but that is only a theory at this time.”

Black Country Coroner Zafar Siddique adjourned the hearing to March 1, 2017, to allow police more time to carry out their investigation.