POLICE have ruled out any new searches for unknown victims of Fred West, including in fields near Much Marcle.

Gloucester police made the decision just days before an ITV documentary that is set to suggest that he may have had more victims.

Detectives were urged by the documentary producers to begin fresh searches in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, including at a farm where he may have buried 12 victims.

The documentary, presented by Sir Trevor McDonald, will air later at 9pm on Wednesday and Thursday.

A spokesman for Gloucestershire police said there wasn’t enough evidence to proceed. “After careful assessment we do not believe the evidence submitted to us at this time meets the threshold to justify further searches in the locations identified,” they said.

“However, as with all cases we will review any new evidence submitted to us.”

The first two sites are in Fingerpost Field, near Much Marcle, where West buried his first known victim, 18-year-old Anna McFall, who was pregnant with his baby.

This is close to Letterbox Field, where he buried his first wife, Catherine ‘Rena’ Costello.

Those two victims were found in 1994, after he gave police precise locations. However, using Ground Penetrating Radar and “cadaver dogs”, the ITV team claims to have identified some new ‘places of interest’ in the area.

The crew also claims to have identified a third location, a derelict farm site, based on information provided to them by Janet Leach, the woman who acted as Fred West’s ‘appropriate adult’ during police questioning.

In the documentary, she says West told her there were “another 20 bodies to be found”. Another source, West’s former employers Wendy and Derek Thomson, said that he has claimed to have “done something in Berkeley”.

Sir Trevor McDonald has urged police to look further into the documentary’s findings. “There is still much more to the murderous campaign of Fred and Rose West,” he said.

“I think the option of not investigating these fields seems very strange. Surely, if there is any suspicion of evidence that there might be more bodies, it follows, as night follows day, that there must be an attempt to discover what happened to these missing people.”