DETECTIVES awaiting crucial DNA test results have taken new steps in a desperate bid to unravel the mystery of why a baby girl was entombed in a concrete block.

Details of tragic baby Lara have now appeared on the National Missing Person's Helpline website, posted by detectives hunting for clues to help them discover who placed the four-month-old in her made-to-measure tomb.

Forensic experts are currently examining DNA samples taken from the baby - dubbed Lara by police - who may be the secret sister of Droitwich woman, Anne Chadwick.

Arrested

Mother-of-three Mrs Chadwick, and her husband Phillip, were arrested at their home in Sandles Road, The Ridings, in January, on suspicion of murdering the baby.

However, the couple - who used to live yards from where the child's remains were found in the village of Barepot, Cumbria - were cleared of any involvement in the child's death.

Officers initially thought Mrs Chadwick was the child's mother, but tests ruled this out, although they did show she was a close relative.

Now experts are examining tissue from Mrs Chadwick's mother - Sheila Thwaites - who died in 1988, aged 49 and police are expecting the results any day now.

However, officers from Cumbria Police, which is leading the inquiry, said they were keeping "all options open".

"We're still trying to identify baby Lara and we've got to keep an open mind," said a spokesman.

"We still need information about her."

Officers have been baffled by the case, which began in September 2002 when a man clearing out his garage smashed up a block of concrete.

Police have never ruled out the possibility the tot was murdered.

Mrs Chadwick, aged 41, who has a younger sister Yvonne, aged 28, has said their mother had a secret 15-year affair with her married next-door neighbour, Joe Thwaites, their father.

She believes the baby could have been the secret daughter of her parents, now both dead.

"What I believe for certain is that neither would have harmed a child in that way," said Mrs Chadwick.