POLICE forensic experts today started to dig up a Bolton back garden, in the search for the body of a six-year-old girl who disappeared 57 years ago.

Sheila Fox was last seen in August 1944 as she walked to her home in Macdonald Avenue, Farnworth after a day in the classroom at St James' Primary School, New Bury.

Despite a huge police search, Sheila was never found.

No one has ever been arrested or charged in connection with her disappearance. Now -- after police received new information about one of Bolton's biggest mysteries -- the grim task of digging up the garden plot of a house in Barton Road, Farnworth, has begun.

Forensic experts began the painstaking search just before 7am and a tent was put up to protect the excavation site. Senior detectives admit the operation is one of the most unusual ever staged in Bolton.

Det Chief Insp Paul Buchanan said" "In 25 years in the force I have never been involved in an investigation of this nature."