Hunt for body in garden of war hero

POLICE are digging up a suburban garden over claims that a war veteran was involved in the killing of a woman more than 50 years ago.

Forensic teams descended on the former home of Second World War RAF navigator Ronald Newell after one of his nine children claimed a woman called Laura had been buried there in the late 1950s.

Mr Newell, who worked as a bus driver after the war, lived in the semi-detached house in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, until he died aged 60 in 1981. The house has changed hands several times since.

One of Mr Newell’s children, Linda Paintain, 58, told the Daily Mail last night that her sister Carol Pennells, 66, went to the police claiming that her father and a group of friends

‘My dad was quite a soft man’

had been involved in the death of a young woman named only as Laura. But Mrs Paintain and another sibling insist their sister is mistaken.

Mrs Paintain, of East Farleigh, Kent, said: ‘My dad was quite a soft man. I can only remember him smacking me once.’

Her brother John Newell, 50, who lives opposite the house being searched, said: ‘The police are wasting their time. There is no body. My sister has done this type of thing before.’

But a Kent Police source insisted: ‘Clearly we would not take such a drastic step as this type of search unless we believed the information was credible.’

Last night no remains had been found but police said the search would continue today.