A GRIEVING woman spoke of her "sadness and relief" after her missing brother's skull was found on the bank of a remote Australian lake.

But Janice Eason, 42, of Brenchley Close, Hayes, says there are still many unanswered questions about how her brother David died and why it took more than two years to find him.

David Eason, a 46-year-old advertising executive, disappeared while on holiday on Fraser Island off the coast of Queensland.

On the day he went missing, Mr Eason became separated from other tourists on a day trip to Lake Wabby.

Despite a ground search and many aerial searches by Australian police, his remains were not found until a British tourist stumbled across them on April 13.

The skull was later identified as Mr Eason's using his dental records.

Miss Eason said: "We are anxiously waiting for more information which can help us gain closure on this.

"There are a lot of unanswered questions including some about the way the police investigation was conducted."

The family were always critical about the methods used to search for Mr Eason.

Miss Eason said: "They relied mainly on helicopter searches and this was not appropriate to the terrain.

"We will always be thinking if they continued the ground search David could have been found alive or at least a lot sooner and we will have to live with that.

The bereaved woman added: "David could have been lying injured hoping that people were looking for him."

But the mother of two says the family always believed Mr Eason was dead.

She said: "We always assumed he had died because we knew he would not put us through this."

Miss Eason told News Shopper about the mixed emotions experienced by the family upon hearing the skull was her brother's.

She said: "We felt a mixture of sadness and relief the trauma we had been through for the past couple of years was coming to an end.

"But it never could have ended while we knew David was out there but couldn't find him."

Mr Eason went missing on March 28, 2001.