Police are having doubts over the story of the English-speaking teenage boy who mysteriously turned up in Berlin three weeks ago. The boy, known only as 'Ray', claimed to have lived in a forest for five years before arriving in the German capital alone.

The 17 year-old boy told police he had been living with his father, but that his father had died over the summer, so he had walked alone to Berlin, having buried him in a shallow grave. He said that his mother had died in a car accident before he and his father had moved to the forest.

The boy claims he can remember nothing else about his past or identity, but the police have been increasingly suspicious.

The police wanted to launch a public appeal to help identify him, but the boy says that he is not interested in establishing his identity.

Berlin police spokesman Thomas Neuendorf explained that there were other inconsistencies that concerned them:

"He just doesn't look like a boy who lived in the forest for any amount of time. The tent he had with him was used, yes, but not so well used as you'd expect for such a long time in the forest,"

Neuendorf also explained that the corpse of his father was yet to be found, and that he
"cannot tell us any facts that we can usefully check. He can't name or describe a single landmark, town or place that may lead us to retrace his steps but just keeps repeating the same vague story."