Police say they have no record of a regional daily journalist telling them about a mysterious phone call he allegedly took minutes before the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

As previously reported, an unknown Cambridge News journalist was said in a declassified document released in October to have been tipped off about “big news” 25 minutes before the US President’s death on 22 November 1963.

The claim was made in a cable between the CIA and FBI, with details being included in a memo to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover from CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton.

According to the memo, the reporter “informed the Cambridge police of the anonymous call and the police informed MI5″.

The Cambridge Nrws front page from three days after JFK’s death

Since the document’s release, the BBC had submitted a Freedom of Information request asking Cambridgeshire Police to check its records from November 1963 for any information related to the incident.

But a force spokesman responded: “Searches were conducted at Cambridgeshire Constabulary for information relating to your request.

“These searches failed to locate any records or documents relevant to your request.”

The force concluded it “[does] not hold the information”.

Last month former News journalist Dominic O’Brien, who began working in Cambridge shortly after the assassination, speculated that the reporter may have been silenced by the security services.

Attempts have been made to track down the reporter who allegedly took the call, but several other living former News journalists have said they are skeptical about whether it was ever made.