SPECIALIST police search teams and mountain rescue experts are being brought in to help find the body of a 'murdered' rapist.

Earlier this week officers investigating the killing of 26-year-old Alan Street named two vast remote sites where they believe he may have been buried.

Police dogs, horses, helicopters and expert officers will be drafted in to scour land off Haslingden Old Road between Knuzden and Oswaldtwistle and the Rivington Pike area of Chorley.

Det Supt Neil Hunter said: “We are in the assessment phase at the moment but we need to make sure we are making the most efficient use of our resources.

“We have been offered assistance from mountain search and rescue teams in our hunt.”

Police believe Mr Street, who was a convicted rapist, was killed in a violent struggle at a house in Stockbridge Road, Padiham, on Sunday, December 21.

Mr Street, of Oswaldtwistle, was last seen on a night out in Burnley on the previous Friday.

Two men, Alan Palmer and Peter Leonard, are wanted by police on suspicion of murder. A 20-year-old Padiham man has been charged with murder.

Mr Hunter has called for anyone who is harbouring long-distance lorry driver Mr Palmer, who was the occupant of the terraced house in Stockbridge Road, and Mr Leonard, to come forward Mr Palmer, 43, is 5ft11ins, tall, medium build, with receding/skinhead dark brown hair. He has brown eyes and several tattoos on his left arm of a snake head, bull, eagle and swallow.

Mr Leonard, 51, is around 5ft 8ins, medium build with blue eyes and very short light brown hair. He has a two inch injury scar on his nose.

Contact police on 01282 425001 or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.