Has the last mystery of the Morecambe Bay cocklepickers finally been solved? Family renting holiday home find human skull and bones on beach - two decades after 23 Chinese workers drowned there with one body never found

A family renting a holiday home by the sea found a human skull and bones on a beach - and may have solved the last mystery of the Morecambe Bay cockling disaster, two decades after 23 Chinese workers drowned there.

Mother-of-two Jenny, 50, her husband Mick, 52, and their 10-year-old twins were walking along Cove Road Beach in Silverdale, north of the bay, when they saw a rocky outcrop and decided to go fossil hunting on Easter Sunday.

Lancashire Police said officers were 'keeping an open mind' when asked if they could rule out a link to the deaths of 23 Chinese men and women, aged 18 to 45, who, on February 5, 2004, drowned as they collected cockles against a rising tide.

The tragedy began as panicked cocklepicker Guo Binglong shouted 'sinking water, sinking water,' in a 999 call until the phone went dead. He was later found dead in a huge search and rescue operation.

The untrained and inexperienced cocklepickers were all illegal immigrants and were working for a criminal gang. Gangmaster Lin Liang Ren was found guilty of their manslaughter in March 2006 and handed a 14-year sentence before being deported to China in September 2012. His girlfriend, Zhao Xiao Qing and his cousin, Lin Mu Yong, were also convicted of immigration offences.

The only victim whose body remains unaccounted for is of Dong Xin Wu, aged 39 when he died, who worked a cobbler in China and had come to the UK to send money to his family.

A human skull found near Silverdale Point - the same coastline as where the skull was found this weekend - was proved by DNA tests in October 2010 to be the remains of missing victim Liu Qin Ying, a mother whose husband Yu Hua Xu also died in the tragedy, leaving their son an orphan.

The man who sent them out onto the sands in February 2004 - gangmaster Lin Liang Ren - was later given a 14-year prison sentence for manslaughter. He was described in court as 'callous' and motivated by money.

Jenny and Mick's twin son and daughter, who are both 'really interested in fossils and dinosaurs', saw and picked up several bones, including a hip, a large vertebra and a limb, initially thinking they were ancient animal remains.

'My son looked down and saw the skull in between rocks,' Jenny, from Lancashire, told MailOnline. He told his mother: 'That doesn't look like and animal or a rock.'

'When I first realised it was a human skull, a cold shiver went down my spine,' Jenny's husband Mick said. Jenny added: 'It was not until we found the skull that the penny dropped that these were human remains.

'It was surreal - my husband was a bit taken aback. I've got a criminology degree so I find that stuff really interesting. I thought I might have found something that needs to be investigated, even the children found it interesting.

'It's not like finding a body, if we'd found a head it would have been more scary.'

As the tide was coming back out at just before 1pm, Jenny decided the best thing to do was to pick up the skull and some other bones and take them ashore and report the findings to the police. They left some bones as her son had dropped them before they realise their true origin.

Jenny said: 'We picked the skull up and the other few bones we had - a vertebra and a rib - and we brought them back to where we were staying. I reported it online to the police.'

She said she thought the remains had been there for a long time and that the skill was 'very clearly' human as 'you can see inside where the brain has been touching the bone', which she described as 'fascinating'. 

After reporting it, she got a call from Lancashire Police 'within minutes' and they had already sent a detective to the beach to talk with her by around 4pm.

'The officers were taken aback,' Jenny said. 'It was surreal. It suddenly felt like we were in a Channel 4 series.

'They treated as human remains and put the bones in the correct bags and took it to  the coroners' office.'

She said that officers had 'mentioned outstanding missing persons from the cocklepicking disaster', adding that 'cocklepickers was my first thought'.

While she says you normally 'shouldn't be touching stuff like that', she was glad she took the bones ashore as the tide had gone back out by the time the police had arrived. 'If they [the police] identify the bones, I hope it can give someone piece of mind,' she said. 

Lancashire Police did not rule out a connection to the Morecambe Bay cockling disaster when asked by MailOnline, but said: 'Although we are keeping an open mind, there is nothing to link the bones to the Morecambe Bay cockling disaster at this stage.'

The force had earlier said: 'At 4.10pm on 31st March we were called to Cove Road Beach in Silverdale to reports bones had been found in the water.

'Our initial enquiries have confirmed that some of the remains are human.

'Although we are keeping an open mind as to the origin of the remains, we believe they have been in the sea for a prolonged period.

'Our enquiries are expected to be ongoing for some time and we continue to liaise with HM Coroner.

'Anyone with information which could assist our investigation is asked to call 101. Quote log 745 of 31st March 2024.'