Couple's gruesome TV discovery

The details of the TV documentary were gruesome. A young girl had been butchered by her father who then hid her body parts in his house and garden - some of which had never been found.

But as Alan and Susan Sykes watched, it slowly dawned on them that the killing had take place inside their own home 15 years earlier.

After the Channel 5 documentary Arrest And Trial the couple were unable to live at 16 Stillwell Drive any longer and sold it at an £8,000 loss. Now they are suing the previous owners, James and Alison Taylor-Rose, on the grounds that they should have told them about the appalling crime when they bought the £83,000 house in Wakefield, West Yorkshire

The case could have widespread implications for the way homes are bought and sold in Britain, forcing sellers to reveal all sorts of information about the property.

It challenges the traditional legal principle of caveat emptor - buyer beware. Tomorrow Mr and Mrs Sykes will seek to overturn a ruling by a county court judge who said the Taylor-Roses were under no obligation to inform them about the property's history.

The programme told how 13-yearold Nilanthie Perera was murdered by her adopted father Dr Samson Perera.

Perera even hid some of the girl's bones in a coffee jar and under the floorboards. He was sentenced to life for the murder.