A REWARD of £100,000 has been put up to help catch the killers of a Bolton born policeman.

Eight years after PC Patrick Dunne was gunned down by a gang of suspected drug dealers in London, police have raised fresh hopes of finding his killer.

The huge sum of money -- half from the Metropolitan Police, the rest by a national newspaper -- will be paid to anyone giving information leading to the conviction of his killer.

Tonight, a six-and-a-half minute reconstruction of the shooting -- in which club doorman Kwame Danso also died -- will be screened on the BBC Crimewatch programme.

Police said they believed advances in DNA testing could trap the killer.

Dunne's younger brother Steve, of Honiton, in Devon, said: "At the moment we are pinning our hopes on fresh evidence from new witnesses.

"We have so far failed to place people at the scene of Crime. I hope that this money will be the spur that some people need.

"I have never given up hope. The DNA tests have not thrown out any positive results as yet, as far as I know, but there's always the hope that it will.

"But tonight's Crimewatch will be even more vital, I feel."

Beat officer PC Dunne, who was described as a real-life 'Dixon of Dock Green', was shot in Clapham, South London, just after 9pm on October 20, 1993.

The 44-year-old was killed by a single bullet to the chest shortly after Danso, a small-time drug dealer, was shot six times by the armed gang at his home.

Danso, described by friends as a "gentle giant", was watching a football match when he answered the door to three black men armed with baseball bats and two handguns, who fired 12 shots at him.

Dunne -- who quit as head of maths at Bolton's Deane School to take up his dream job as a police officer -- had been dealing with a routine inquiry at the house across the street when he heard the shots.

As he went outside to investigate, he was gunned down by the gang, who fired celebratory shots in the air as they left.

Scotland Yard put a team of detectives back on the case on the anniversary of his murder and witnesses are being re-interviewed.

Det Chief Insp Gary Richardson said: "Clearly, DNA has advanced in the last eight years, and a number of items have been re-submitted to the Metropolitan Police forensic laboratory and we have some preliminary results.

"At the moment, they are in their initial stages, we intend to take that further and it will be a major part of our re-investigation.

"We decided to reopen the inquiry because it appears to be one we can solve."He refused to say which items had been re-submitted for DNA testing, but they were all pieces of evidence which had been tested eight years ago.

In June of 1994, police recovered both the handguns used in the killings after an anonymous caller to Crimestoppers told police to go to Wandsworth cemetery where a cross made with lipstick marked where the guns were buried.

Mr Richardson appealed for any witnesses who saw the gang near the scene of the shooting in Cato Road to come forward.

He also appealed to anyone who had come into contact with the two handguns, including whoever buried them and the anonymous caller to Crimestoppers.

In 1993, three men were charged in connection with the shooting but the charges were dropped the following year.

The murder of Pc Dunne shocked people across Britain and 800 mourners, including the then shadow home secretary Tony Blair attended his funeral.

Diana, Princess of Wales, was among those touched by his death and sent flowers to his mother.