A FIVE year investigation by an independent watchdog into evidence used to convict wife killer Gordon Park is still ongoing.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission say they are still looking into it and currently in talks with his family.

Park’s family launched a fresh bid to clear his name in 2010 – nine months after he was found dead in his prison cell on his 66th birthday.

In 2013 an inquest jury in Preston ruled that the ex-teacher from Barrow, had killed himself. He was found asphyxiated in his cell at HMP Garth in Leyland, Lancashire.

It is 10 years since Park was convicted of murdering his wife Carol.

She was dubbed ‘The Lady in the Lake’ and vanished in July 1976 after she and Park had a string of rows.

He always maintained he had taken their children to Blackpool for the day and she had stayed at home in Leece and then disappeared.

Park waited six weeks before reporting her missing.

In fact, he had bludgeoned her to death with an ice axe after she threatened to walk out on him.

The keen sailor then tied up her body and dumped her in 80ft of water.

Divers found her - wearing a summery pinafore dress - trussed up and weighted down in Coniston Water in August 1997.

He was arrested for murder but the case was dropped due to a lack of evidence.

Park was re-arrested six years later and stood trial in 2005 at Manchester Crown Court.

He was linked to the killing by the knots used to tie up Carol’s corpse and a piece of Westmorland green slate, used to weigh it down, that matched stone at the family home.

In November 2008 three judges sitting at the Court of Appeal in London rejected an application by Park for leave to appeal against his conviction.

Last year the Evening Mail exclusively revealed how a source claimed that the watchdog may be re-examining evidence from a woman who saw the former teacher push something into Coniston Water in 1976. She came forward to give her account in 2004.

Joan Young’s testimony was challenged during the court case a decade ago, because so much time has passed and because of the distance involved.

It was said during the trial that Mrs Young was too far away to identify the person in the boat, and that it couldn’t have been Mrs Park’s body that was being dumped as Mrs Young was positioned in a way that the place where the body was found would have been visibly blocked by an island.

A watchdog spokesman said: “Our investigation is ongoing and we are actively pursuing several lines of inquiry. We are also in talks with the family.”

For the last five years the CCRC has been looking at all the evidence and police files to see if the case should go before the Court of Appeal.

It probes miscarriages of justice in the UK. It rarely considers cases when the person has died. Such a probe can take up to six years to fully investigate fully.