A BOLTON man was informed 43 YEARS ago that a body had been buried in a back garden now being dug up by forensic experts searching for a missing child.

Thomas Derbyshire told the Bolton Evening News today that he "laughed off" claims made in 1958 by an elderly neighbour that the rear garden plot on Barton Road, Farnworth, hid the grisly secret.

A specialist forensic team is now excavating the garden, searching for missing six-year-old Sheila Fox, who vanished without trace in 1944. The police moved in after officers received a tip-off that a man had been seen digging in the garden after midnight around the time Sheila disappeared.

Mr Derbyshire, aged 68, who lives just a few doors away from the dig site, told the BEN that a former elderly neighbour, Mary Wolfendale, told him she believed a body was buried in the plot.

The great-grandfather added: "When we moved here in 1958 she told my wife that there was a body buried in that garden. My wife came in and told me and we just laughed it off. We thought it was a bit of old woman's gossip.

"We were only about 25 years old at the time and we never thought any more about it until this happened.

"When we were told about what was going to happen we were gutted. I remembered what Mrs Wolfendale had told us.

"I just wish at the time I had said something to someone else but I honestly believed it was just an old woman talking."

Mrs Wolfendale was killed in a house fire at her home in Barton Road, in the 1960s.

Today police chiefs confirmed they would be keen to hear more about the elderly woman's claims.

A spokesman added: "We would consider any new information which would help us in the Sheila Fox inquiry."

Today is the third day that the team has been digging in the back garden, which has been screened off by a tent.

Barrow loads of earth have been removed and taken away in skips during the painstaking search.