THREE bodies found after the mysterious sinking of the trawler Gaul in 1974 could be members of the British crew, according to a TV probe.

Now a solicitor acting for the families of the crew is investigating the possibility of identifying the bodies and perhaps returning them home.

Sheila Doone, of Brierfield, whose husband John was on the Gaul, praised the hour-long Network First programme on the strange disappearance of the ship but said much of what it covered she already knew.

Mr Doone, a Royal Navy officer, was the ship's radio operator and one of only a handful of men on watch when the accident happened. The rest of the crew were thought to have been asleep at the time.

The Gaul, which was the latest in a line of factory vessels designed to fish in the north Atlantic, disappeared off the north Norwegian coast during the height of the Cold War.

"Three bodies were found on an island off Russia sometime after the sinking," said Mrs Doone. "They were wearing British clothing although no-one seems to have identified them.

"One was buried on the beach, another in a cemetery and we don't know where the third one went to.

"There's no firm evidence to say they were from the Gaul although it seems a bit of a coincidence. The solicitor is going to see whether we can identify who they are although after all this time it might be too difficult."

Last night's programme suggested the Gaul and its 36-strong crew were spying on the movements of Russian ballistic submarines when the ship was involved in an accidental collision with a sub in heavy seas. It is a theory that Mrs Doone and the other families support. "They were spying and John would have had to know about what was going on," she said. "He was the radio operator and he would have been involved.

"The programme went towards it being an accident with a submarine surfacing and hitting the ship.

"If it was tipped over suddenly, that might explain why there was no Mayday signal sent out."

Mrs Doone was filmed for the programme but the interview was not shown.

An official inquiry said the likeliest cause of the incident was that the Gaul was hit by a freak wave.

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