Spanish police investigating the murder of former Keighley woman Yvonne O'Brien have been given information by officers in Britain.

Police in High Wycombe, leading the British side of the investigation into the murder of the 44-year-old divorcee in Majorca, said they were liaising with officers on the island, and with Interpol.

Yvonne, a mother-of-one, was discovered stabbed to death in her home on the island. Spanish police said she had been stabbed 40 times and had been tortured for hours.

She was found hanging from a wire with the words love, sex and peace daubed in blood on the walls.

A spokesman for High Wycombe Police said: "We are liaising with Spanish police and Interpol and have provided them with information which we can't release at this time."

Majorcan police arrested and interviewed two men but they have been released without charge.

Meanwhile, Yvonne's brother Philip Graham and his family are to emigrate to Majorca.

Mr Graham, 46, of Keighley, who works in the transport department of North Yorkshire County Council in Skipton, plans to set up home there with his wife, Tina, and toddler daughter.

Mrs Graham said: "We have had holidays there and we want to settle there in the future. Philip, like Yvonne, is attracted to the island."

Mr Graham has admitted his sister was an alcoholic but has denied claims she was involved in a bizarre sex game when she died.

Meanwhile, an old friend of the murdered woman has revealed how Mrs O'Brien had always longed to escape from Keighley, where she grew up.

Former schoolfriend Diane Booth has fond recollections of their time as teenagers in Oakworth, where Yvonne was born.

But her fun-loving friend always yearned for London, and went there when she was 19.

"Keighley wasn't her type of place," recalled Miss Booth, 43, who is registered blind and still lives in the town. "She was always longing to get away and down to London."

After her marriage ended in divorce, Mrs O'Brien made her home on Majorca, calling it her sunshine island.

"It's a terrible way for anybody to die. Nobody deserves that and I hope they get whoever it is," said Miss Booth.

"She was a very popular person. She was good-natured, fun-loving, everybody liked her."

The two of them used to visit Keighley's Cavendish pub together.

Anton Allen, 51, a landscape gardener from Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire, where Mrs O'Brien used to live, has recalled his drinking days with her.

"She was a wildcat. The people of Spain wouldn't know what hit them when Yvonne arrived," he said.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.