DOZENS of members of the Ukrainian division of Hitler's Waffen SS may have been living in Bolton for years, a housing boss has claimed.

Cllr Noel Spencer believes a number of former soldiers in the notorious unit - blamed for a series of atrocities during the Second World War - came to live in the area when hostilities came to an end.

Cllr Spencer, chairman of Bolton at Home which manages Bolton's Council housing, claims to have evidence that a number of Ukrainians living in Bolton, whom he has met, are hiding a secret past of fighting for Hitler.

The self-taught Second World War expert has backed calls made by Leigh MP Andy Burnham for soldiers who took part in atrocities to be traced.

Home Office minister Mr Burnham believes Britain has a moral duty to get belated justice for the victims of war crimes committed by the outfit.

It comes after the release of official secret documents which revealed that the entire Ukrainian "Galicia" division of Hitler's elite troops were allowed to settle in this country in 1947 to protect them from persecution in their homeland.

Many initially posed as Poles who had fought alongside the British.

But some of the Ukrainians who started new lives in Bolton admitted to Cllr Spencer that they had arrived in Britain from Italian POW camps in Rimini which, he claims, could only mean they had been soldiers of the SS.

More than 7,000 SS prisoners were allowed to settle in Britain because Home Office ministers feared they would be slaughtered or there would be riots if they were sent back to the Ukraine. They were all Ukrainians who volunteered to join the Nazis when German forces over-ran south-eastern Poland and western Ukraine, which was then part of Soviet Russia.

The division committed many atrocities and were famed for the relish with which they carried out Hitler's dirty work.

They took part in the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw and helped to exterminate many of the millions who died in the concentration camps. Many of the men are still alive and are being investigated by Scotland Yard for possible war crimes.

Cllr Spencer said: "Many of the SS soldiers living in Bolton will have passed away but it is possible that some are still alive.

"Around ten told me they had come from Rimini and I believe that dozens came and settled here.

"There are a lot of allegations from various countries about this unit and anyone involved in these sorts of crimes should be made to answer for them. These people have not been investigated in any meaningful way."

He also claimed that up until a few years ago wreaths were regularly laid at the war memorial in Victoria Square in the yellow and blue colours of the Ukrainian flag, marking the Battle of Brody in 1944 in which thousands of Ukrainians fighting for the Nazis were killed by the Red Army.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said they would be interested in Cllr Spencer's evidence.

Mr Burnham said: "It doesn't matter where these people are, the principle is the same - if they have committed atrocities, which were on a scale unimaginable to us, they should be held to account."