Dead sheep sparks a major alert on moors
Reporter: Words by KEN BENNETT
Date published: 30 July 2008
Photo: Pictures: KEN BENNETT, VINCENT BROWN and PRESS ASSOCIATION
POLICE forensics officers examine the scene at Saddleworth moor
A Saddleworth sheep farmer sparked a full-scale alert on Saddleworth Moor.
Chris Crowther (51), father of three, called police after uncovering a suspicious site on windswept Wessenden Head, 1,600ft high and a mile off the main Greenfield to Holmfirth Road.
Police teams from Saddleworth and Kirklees rushed to the scene and cordoned off half an acre of moorland on the B6108, which takes a winding route to Meltham.
And a huge media posse, including all the major TV networks, national newspapers and local radio stations crowded into the area. Many came after Sky News strongly hinted the “human remains’’ could be linked to the Moors murders.
But after a comprehensive examination by a team of West Yorkshire forensic science officers, police announced last night: “It is a dead sheep. The site has now been cleared.”
The road was closed to traffic while a specialist team of scene-of-crime officers from West Yorkshire, with a mobile headquarters, erected a tent over a spot in the cordoned off area.
Today Chris, who farms 12,000 acres of land between Greenfield and Meltham, talked of how he discovered the site with one of his sons, Christopher (18) and 16-year-old daughter, Claire.
The trio had been rounding up sheep near Holly Bank and West Nab, two high point landmarks on the moor.
The farmer’s four collie dogs began rolling on an indented spot of moorland scrub a hundred yards from the road.
Chris said: “The dogs just kept on rolling round — even when I called them away. They kept going back to the same spot and rolling round again. It’s a sign of death when collie’s do this. I went over with Claire and Christopher and probed the land with my shepherd’s crook. Something white and crumbly, like decaying bones, came up. Then something that could have been skin or tissue. But I couldn’t be sure.
“I didn’t know what to think — but I did not want to investigate further particularly if what I had discovered a body or an animal of some sort. It could have been anything — I just didn’t know. But whatever it is had been in the ground some time. There was white crumbly stuff on the soil that could have been bone.”
Traffic was reduced to single lane when scores of media vehicles and TV crews arrived, some with vans sprouting satellite dishes.
Claire, a former pupil at Saddleworth School, said: “There seemed to be some kind of shape in the ground.
“We put a spade in the ground and some mushy, white stuff like bone came up.”
The family contacted the police and Uppermill and Lees inspector Danny Milovanovc led a vanguard of officers, including uniformed sergeants Craig Johnson and Annette Nodwell, to the scene.
Meantime, a squad of detectives from Kirklees, joined their colleagues at the site.
