Crisis counsellors from Skipton are preparing to make a mercy dash to help the traumatised victims of the Bali bombing.

The trauma experts at the Centre for Crisis Psychology (CCP), based at Broughton Hall, are on standby to help distressed loved ones and those who escaped the horror.

The company, which was born out of the Bradford City fire in 1985, is already counselling staff at a London firm of lawyers which has reported one of its employees missing.

And it has been alerted by major travel companies which might need to call on its counselling expertise.

Michael Stewart, founder of CCP, said a London law firm's employee was at the nightclub at the time of the explosion and had not been located.

"The man works for the London firm at its branch in Bali. I cannot reveal his identity, but he was at the nightclub and he is still missing," said Mr Stewart.

He said the centre had also been contacted by top travel companies Thomson, My Travel, Cosmos and Thomas Cook and urged to be on stand-by in case clients needed help.

"It's still early days yet. Identification is still going on and could be some time yet. We are in contact with these firms on a daily basis," he said.

The traumas resulting from the bombing would be terrible, he explained. "Bodies will be badly burned and have to be identified by dental records, DNA and jewellery.

"And, of course, there are the difficulties people face when there is no tangible body."

The CCP has been involved in counselling victims of some of the worse world-wide disasters in recent years, including the sinking of the ferry, The Herald of Free Enterprise and, more recently, the bus crash in Nevada where 39 British passengers were injured in September 2000.

Michael Stewart, 50, a father-of-five and psychiatric social worker by profession, founded the company with his partner Peter Hodgkinson, who trained as a forensic psychologist 14 years ago.

The centre helps traumatised victims of incidents as wide-ranging as bank raids and air disasters.