
© Burnley Express
Elaine Bell with the human skull found in a river close to Cemetery Wood near the former Hapton colliery(s).
A suspected human skull found in a river by a Hapton couple out walking their dogs in May was an elaborate hoax.
Police said forensic experts initially thought the skull belonged to a man but when they tried to subject it to carbon dating, they realised it was a fake.
Further chemical tests confirmed that it was an elaborate replica of a skull belonging to an Aboriginal man.
The fake skull even had a fracture which had healed, incision marks suggesting a pre-death operation and signs of a significant infection around the nose and mouth.
It was initially handed to police by Mr and Mrs Mick and Elaine Bell, of Valley Gardens, who had been walking their dogs near to a shallow section of water which flows through Spa Wood, between Burnley Cemetery and Hapton Colliery.
Det. Sgt Charlie Haynes, of Burnley CID, said that it had been cast from an original skull.
"A visual examination of photographs by the anthropologist indicated that the skull was that of a human male," he said.
"Given the close proximity to the colliery and the cemetery this was not surprising, and a number of theories emerged including the possibility that the skull had been washed away from the rear of the cemetery by the recent heavy rain, or had been washed out of the colliery having been the remains of a miner who had died there prior to the 1962 disaster.