POLICE searching for human remains have begun digging up the garden of a south London home once owned by a convicted paedophile.

After an extensive fingertip search, forensic police began the task of digging underground to find the suspected graves in the home on Walton Green, in the New Addington Estate, near Croydon.

An anonymous letter sent to police 12 months ago alleging that human remains were buried at the house 35 years ago triggered the search.

It's been reported the remains belong to two young children who went missing.

Police spent the weekend erecting scaffolding and wire mesh fencing in the garden.

Despite today's poor weather a digger can be see at the front of the house.

A police spokesman said the letter's author had been identified and was now being looked after by family liaison officers.

Last week police said they were still searching the missing persons register from 35 years ago.

The house is the former residence of 72-year-old paedophile Leslie Ford-Thrussell who was jailed for 12 years in June 2004 for a string of sex offences on nine girls, some as young as six.

The former landscape gardener was convicted of seven counts of rape and 23 counts of indecent assault over a period of 17 years.

He targeted some of his victims as they went to school, offering them sweets, and videotaped some of the abuse, Croydon Crown Court heard during the June 2004 case.

However Ford-Thrussell was not thought to be living at the address 35 years ago and police say they are uncertain whether an offence had been committed.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Stockford said officers investigated the letter over the last year and that information given to them by the letter's author gave "additional weight" to the inquiry.

He said: "We are ruling nobody in or nobody out of the investigation."

The Times newspaper reported last week that police using specialist equipment had found two areas of ground that appear to have been disturbed.