Back in November the newspaper rumour mill whispered word of an all-new freesheet to grace the streets of the capital, The London Weekly. By December, marketing manager Paul Morris announced a launch date of the 1 February and its partnership website went live.

Despite a rather unpolished online offering (from a company that claims to have £10.5 million in the kitty), displaying few regular news updates written by just two users and registered from a German server, Morris last week maintained that the 250,000 copies of the freesheet would be handed out every Friday and Saturday - although the start date would now be delayed until the 5 February.

As media commentators, Londoners and commuters alike await the arrival of London's newest newspaper, there now seems to be a heavy question mark hanging over whether the print edition will ever roll off the printing press at all.

Reports from the Guardian point to something a little strange seems going on at the paper. Indeed, searching for ways to contact the paper's management or journalists proves nigh on impossible, with Google throwing up very few results regarding supposed staff members. The Guardian has found that staff lists are inaccurate, with freelance fashion journalist Simon Galzin being listed as a staff member on the site, despite the fact that he was never paid for work he had submitted. Other journalists are now also coming forward, saying that they have not heard from the paper in months, let alone received remuneration.

Journalism.co.uk's Judith Townend and James Ball of Jamesrb.co.uk are heading up the case. Their trail of investigative reporting has lead them to today's discovery that the paper's offices - previously unknown, are also listed as being those of Invincible Radio, linked to Invinciblemag.com of the Invincible Group - a similarly dubious media outlet, with numerous fictitious credentials. The publishing group behind the paper, the impressively named Global Publishing Group, is not listed as a company on UK Companies House, either as a limited company or a limited liability partnership.

Media commentators said that launching a new newspaper, albeit a free one, was always going to be tricky when the capital was already well stocked with the likes of the London Evening Standard, the Metro, Sport magazine, Shortlist and Stylist and so on. Yet The London Weekly insisted it was unfazed by such competition, dreaming big and announcing its intentions to launch print operations in other main cities, as well as a TV channel and Radio station. But perhaps these high hopes were little more than hot air. As things stand, the appearance of the paper on Friday seems more unlikely than ever. The National Union of Journalists is now said to be investigating.

Sources: Guardian, Jamesrb.co.uk, Journalism.co.uk