THE parents of a schoolgirl murdered 10 years ago have been given an in-depth briefing by a police review team investigating the case.

Cliff and Lin Tiltman, whose daughter, Claire, was stabbed to death in an alleyway in Greenhithe, near Dartford, on January 18, 1993, travelled to Kent Police headquarters in Maidstone on Tuesday to be updated by detectives.

The review team has told the couple they are hopeful of making a breakthrough in the hunt to track down Claire's killer.

Detectives said last week they believe advances in forensic investigation - including DNA testing - could provide important new clues to the killer's identity.

The review team is currently awaiting the results of tests carried out by forensic experts on exhibits from the case to see if any DNA is evident on them.

Sixteen-year-old Claire was stabbed more than 40 times. The Dartford Grammar School student was attacked as she took a short-cut to a friend's house from her home in Horns Cross.

The current review of the original murder investigation is being overseen by former Kent Police Detective Superintendent Dave Stevens. He now works for the force in a civilian capacity as head of its case review team.

As a Det Supt, Mr Stevens was the senior investigating officer into the murders of Lin and Megan Russell in Chillenden, near Canterbury, in 1996. Mr Stevens said: "I am confident, with our new technology, that if the answer is there to be found, then we will find it."

The review team has spent most of this year painstakingly trawling through the huge amount of information generated by the original murder investigation.

This included more than 1,500 statements, hundreds of crime exhibits and the results of thousands of house to house inquiries made by officers at the time.