Sewer death woman 'was lost in tunnel'

A woman found dead in a sewage tank may have become lost in a maze of tunnels before being overcome by poison gas, it emerged today.

The near naked body of Kaylene Lyle, 43, was found in a giant vat at Abbey Wood, south-east London.

However, detectives have established that she crawled into a culvert eight miles away in Wandsworth and now believe she may have walked or crawled through the network of large tunnels for around 24 hours before collapsing.

One possibility is that she was overcome by sewer gas and fell into the water and drowned. Experts say the gas causes red marks on the body, which prompted initial fears that she could have been strangled. Jamaican Mrs Lyle was last seen in an agitated state at St George's Hospital, Tooting, two days before her body was found last Friday.