POLICE have launched a fresh bid to finally solve the mystery surrounding a woman's body discovered in North Yorkshire more than 40 years ago.

BBC TV's Crimewatch Live revealed yesterday that a specialist cold case team is looking again into the death of the woman, whose decomposed body was found dumped beside a road near Sutton Bank in August1981.

The woman has still not been identified today.

Adam Harland, a former detective who is now head of North Yorkshire Police’s Cold Case Review Team and is leading the review, launched a fresh appeal on the programme for information.

He said: "She remains one of the more enduring mysteries for North Yorkshire Police and indeed probably for most of the north of England.

"It started back in 1981 when a call was made to Ripon police station by a man who describes having found a body among the rosebay willow herb on the road to Scawton."

He said the man refused to give his details, citing 'national security,' and he had never been traced.

He said police had to scythe through the undergrowth and the skeleton of a female was found in a state of decomposition, suggesting that she had been dumped there.

"Underneath the body was found a yoghurt pot top which contained the date of 6 September 1979," he said. "That would suggest that the body had to have been placed on top of that in 1979.

"The circumstances of this lady's death point towards it being an unnatural death. We don't think she died in this location, that she has been brought to it after her death."

He said police knew the woman had given birth two or three times.

Mr Harland said that 28 years later, the police applied to the Coroner for permission to exhume the woman's body from Malton cemetery and were able to establish her DNA. She was between 35 and 45 years old and had shoulder length brown hair, and police didn't know from her remains how she died.

He said a wax head was made at the time by scientists, based upon the features of her skull ,to provide a representation of what she looked like.

He urged people to come forward if there were people missing from their families to see if police could establish a link through her DNA.

"We are asking people to look at their family histories to see if there is someone missing, from their immediate family or perhaps their wider family, so we can go to Malton Cemetery and identify who that lady is."

*Anyone with information was urged to call 08000 468999, text 'crime' to the programme on 63399, or email cwl@bbc.co.uk.