Hunt for the vanishing magician

Britain's Magic Circle has launched an appeal to track down a woman it expelled over three decades ago for posing as a man to gain admittance to the formerly male-only magicians' society.

The London-based international magic organisation now wants to apologise to Sophie Lloyd, who was ejected in 1991 for "masquerading as a male".

Lloyd, who had posed as Raymond Lloyd for 18 months, unmasked herself as a woman when the organisation voted to admit women in 1991.

But members angered at her "deliberate deception", went ahead with her expulsion.

Efforts to locate Lloyd, also thought to use the name Sue, have so far drawn a blank.

"Has she vanished? Who knows what the reason is that we haven't found her but, right now, the vanishing act is still very much a mystery," Laura London, the first female chair of the Magic Circle, said.