INVESTIGATING the death of former Blackburn woman Evelyn Lund in France has been an extremely lengthy process.

She disappeared in December 1999 but it was almost two years before police found her body inside her car at the bottom of a lake five miles from home in France.

Inquiries by British and French police then dragged on for three years and the dead woman's family and friends became increasingly concerned at an apparent lack of progress in deciding whether her death was the result of a criminal act and if so by whom.

Finally, in November 2004, her husband Robert was arrested, after having been interviewed at length twice, and remanded in prison.

Now, after more than a year in jail, his relatives have been told that Robert could face at least another year in jail before coming to trial.

And his brother wants to know where, how and why prosecutors think Evelyn Lund died and why matters have been held up for so long.

It is difficult to disagree with him.

Friends and relatives of Evelyn and Robert Lund should not have had to wait so long for justice.

Things must be speeded up because justice delayed is justice denied.