TWENTY five years ago on Tuesday, the body of Bournemouth insurance clerk Sandra Court was dumped in a ditch on the Avon Causeway.

The friendly, popular and bubbly 26-year-old had been strangled after a night out to celebrate her last day as an employee at Ambassador Life, a subsidiary of Abbey Life.

She was on the verge of a new life as a nanny in Majorca when her life was cut tragically short.

But despite painstaking inquiries over the last quarter of a century, police have been unable to trace her killer.

Today Dorset Police Crime Review Officer Phil James pledged to continue the hunt for her killer and said: “It remains an important case to us and one that we would really love to solve.

“We have reviewed the case twice but at the moment we have no news on it.”

The final day of Sandra’s life was dominated by leaving celebrations, which ended at Steppes nightclub in St Swithun’s Road, Bournemouth.

A taxi driver took her to her sister’s home in Downton Close, Throop just after 3am and she told him she would wait outside because her sister was out.

But a group of teenagers on a Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme walk later that morning discovered her fully clothed body in a water-filled ditch.

Mr James said Dorset Police officers have worked closely with the Metropolitan Police in relation to potential links with the case of Suzy Lamplugh, a London estate agent who was never seen again after going to meet a potential buyer.

John Cannan, a convicted killer and rapist, was a suspect in both cases after being found guilty of killing Bristol newly-wed Shirley Banks in October 1987.

Following his conviction it emerged that Cannan had told a prison visitor that the person who killed Shirley Banks also murdered Suzy Lamplugh and another woman.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Dorset Police on 01202 222222 or the free and anonymous Crimestoppers line on 0800 555 111.