SHEILA McCaughran suffered the horror of seeing her husband Joseph dragged along by a burglar's getaway car and suffering serious head injuries that killed him.

It was a terrible crime by any yardstick. It was one that a coroner's inquest said was unlawful killing. And it was one that Lancashire Police said they would treat as murder.

Why then, more than six months after 69-year-old Blackburnian Mr McCaughran died because he tried to trying to stop the thief who stole a camcorder containing footage of his grandson, does it seem to his widow that little or no investigation into his death is taking place?

Is it because the crime took place in Spain -- where the McCaughran's had a holiday home?

It may be that distance and the fact that the investigation there is officially in the hands of the Spanish police do not make it easy for Lancashire Constabulary to conduct their own inquiries. But is that any reason for Mrs McCaughran to be kept in the dark for so long?

She says she has not heard anything from either the Spanish police or the police in Blackburn.

But if there is an odour of indifference about the attitude of the Spanish authorities -- something that Foreign Secretary and Blackburn MP Jack Straw might loudly question -- why should there apparently be the same response from our own police?

After all, when the inquest verdict of unlawful killing was recorded five whole months ago, the force said it would treat the case as one of murder, appoint a senior officer to investigate and possibly send a detective to Spain.

What has happened since? Nothing, as far as the bereaved Mrs McCaughran knows. And though it is revealed today that officers from Lancashire have not been to Spain, the only explanation given is that it is "not appropriate at this stage."

Nor is it, we think, appropriate or proper for a case classed as murder to remain in an apparent limbo and the widow of its victim to be deprived of justice.