A FATHER has been told of his daughter's murder for the first time, 26 years after she died.

The naked body of Carol Lannen, an 18-year-old prostitute, was found in Templeton Woods on the outskirts of Dundee in March 1979. However her father, Norman, discovered this only when police called at his home in Bradford, Yorkshire, two weeks ago.

Ms Lannen's killer has never been found, but the murder investigation is one of several that have been revisited, due to the development of modern crime-fighting techniques.

As part of the inquiry, Tayside police tracked Mr Lannen for background information.

Mr Lannen split from his family several years before the murder, and was unaware that his daughter had been one of the two victims of the unsolved Templeton Woods killings.

The second victim, Elizabeth McCabe, 20, a nursery nurse, was found in similar circumstances less than a year later.

Interest in the two cases was renewed last year as part of Operation Trinity, an investigation into seven unsolved murders across Scotland.

Recently the Lannen case has focused on the Kemnay area of Aberdeenshire. Several days after the murder, Ms Lannen's handbag was dumped in the River Don.

Mr Lannen remained unaware of the media attention the murders attracted in 1979 and in recent months. He had not been in contact with Carol, the mother of a three-monthold baby at the time of her death, or any other members of his family, since he returned to Yorkshire.

His family in Dundee believed he was dead.

Mr Lannen said: "Two men knocked on the door and said they were police from Dundee.

They asked me if I was Norman Lannen and if I had a daughter called Carol.

"They said they were there to speak about her death in 1979.

I didn't know about it. It was a shock. You'd think that somebody would have told me earlier."

Mr Lannen said the detectives seemed surprised he had not known of the murder.

Mr Lannen told them he had originally come to the Dundee area because he was serving at RAF Leuchars, but returned to Yorkshire after what he said had been a family breakdown, and he had never been back.

He last saw Carol when she was 10 or 11, and admitted: "If my sons came in the door now, or if I saw them on the street, I would not know them."

Although the detectives were able to give him some details about the murder, Mr Lannen contacted a newspaper to ask to be sent cuttings to help fill in the blanks. "Whatever happened with Carol I couldn't have stopped it, " he said.

Mr Lannen had since planned to visit Dundee last week, but his partner of 17 years is ill and he cannot leave her. He plans to visit the city in the summer.

Ms Lannen's mother, Christine McCluskey, said: "Prior to Carol's murder, her father was in a new relationship and requested there should be no further communication with us.

"We have had no contact during the past 25 years. We presumed he had since died."