A POST mortem is due to be carried out tonight (Tuesday May 28) on the body found by police looking for a missing grandmother.

The body was removed from moorland near Ripponden in West Yorkshire and taken to a hospital mortuary in Bradford.

Home Office pathologist Mark Egan will try to determine the cause of death.

The body has yet to be formally identified.

Dozens of officers from County Durham and West Yorkshire have spent weeks on a painstaking search for Pamela Jackson, 55, who disappeared from her home in Chester-le-Street, in early March.

The body was discovered yesterday (Monday, March 27) afternoon near Turvin Road.

Ms Jackson’s partner Adrian Muir, 50, a dry stone-waller from Halifax, has been charged with her murder.

The search for her body was halted by snowfall in late March. It has covered several reservoirs in the area. Before the focus switched to West Yorkshire, the River Wear at Chester-le-Street and surrounding countryside was searched.

Ms Jackson, who had three sons - Andrew, Christopher and Joe - and four grandchildren - was the eldest of four sisters.

Her sisters have visited the fells to meet the search teams and lay flowers.