Lynette White was murdered in 1988

Police have reopened the case into the murder of 20-year-old Ms White, whose mutilated body was found on St Valentine's Day 1988 at her flat above a betting shop in Butetown in Cardiff.

Tony Paris, one of the men dubbed the Cardiff Three jailed in 1990, visited a solictor's office on Friday, 25 January, to give a mouth swab for use by detectives and Mr Actie is reported to want to do the same thing.

The men want to see themselves ruled out of the investigation completely.

Speaking after the DNA testing on Friday, Mr Paris said: "It's like a third trial - that's what it seems like. I don't like it but it's got to be done," he said.

"This is what I've got to do to show that I've got nothing to do with it."

Anthony Paris offered detectives a DNA sample

Ms White's killing became one of the highest-profile murder investigations of the era.

No arrests have been made since the Cardiff Three trial, although police launched a new inquiry in September 2000 and have built up a profile of her killer.

South Wales Police - who have 20 officers working on the inquiry - say a number of people have already contacted them offering to provide a DNA sample following their appeal.

Officers will now have to trawl through a database of 5,000 people who were previously close to the inquiry.

They say they will attempt to contact people on a priority basis and ask them if they willing to give a sample of DNA.

The shopfront below Ms White's Cardiff Bay flat

Samples must be given voluntarily and take the form of a swab from the mouth.

South Wales Police Assistant Chief Constable Tony Rogers said the screening process was entirely confidential.

"We know there were some people who were lawfully at Lynette's flat around the time she was killed who need to be eliminated from the enquiry."

"We would appeal to them to come forward and contact the incident room," he said.

He added that a review of all undetected murders using DNA technology had led to the move and to the identification of the suspected killer of three teenage girls from Neath in 1973.

The latest inquiry followed a 15-month study by senior officers brought in from Lancashire and an independent panel of lay people into the original investigation.

It was on the recommendations of their report that the police ordered a fresh inquiry.

Chief Constable Tony Burden announced police would follow new lines of inquiry and use new DNA technology to investigate the case.