DETECTIVES trying to identify the victims of the Morecambe Bay tragedy are on their way to China.

The team of eight officers, including two currently working in East Lancashire, are travelling to China to collect DNA evidence from the families in order to compare with that of the victims to confirm identities.

The officers will be in China for 10 days dealing with relatives in Shenyang and Fujian.

DCI Steve Brunskill, who was a detective inspector in Nelson from January 2000 to April 2001 and is leading the party, said: "We have already done a great deal of work and made good progress towards identifying those men and women who so tragically lost their lives on February 5."

"We now believe we know the names of all 20 of the victims but we need to travel to China in order to obtain DNA evidence that will confirm the identities.

"Officers from Lancashire will be in China to meet relatives of the victims and show them specially prepared identification packs containing evidence we have collected.

"At this time there are still three outstanding missing persons who were believed by their families to be cockle pickers at Morecambe, and have not been in contact since the tragedy.

"We will have a clearer picture about this, after the work in China has been completed."

Accompanying DCI Brunskill will be Sergeant Ruth Chew, who has worked in Burnley since November 2003, PC Paul Hope, who has worked for Pennine division since 1989, and Inspector Graham Herrmann, Sgt Lloyd Bell, PC Bob Hodgson, PC Steve Gardner and PC Kwok Cheung, of Northern Division.