The family of murder victim Muriel McKay are heading for a confrontation with detectives over concerns they are not doing enough to find her remains.

Muriel’s son Ian McKay and grandson Mark Dyer are expected to revisit the Hertfordshire farmland site of a new excavation to thrash out their concerns with police on Thursday.

The family say they’ve been told Muriel’s daughter Dianne, 85, has been banned from the site, where it’s believed Muriel’s body was buried after her kidnap and murder 55 years ago.

Ian McKay, 82, said: “The officer in charge told me my sister Di is banned and won’t be allowed to visit. I was dumbfounded.

“He wouldn’t say why, but I think it must be that she complained before about his outrageous behaviour towards her and he’s now under internal investigation.”

The family are angry the same officer “rudely” stopped their lawyer, who was armed with “helpful” old maps and photographs of the farm, entering the site with them on Tuesday.

Reporters witnessed the Metropolitan Police officer turning back solicitor Robert Edginton who arrived with Mr McKay and Mr Dyer.

The officer shook Mr Edginton’s hand and told him abruptly: “You’re not coming in.” When Mr Dyer explained the solicitor had useful maps and documents, the officer said: “He’s not coming in.”

Mr Dyer said: “He was very rude to Robert who has spent weeks researching the site and had valuable information that would have helped the search.

“That officer led the search here two years ago, when they didn’t find anything, and we don’t believe he wants us to succeed. I don’t understand why. He told me last year police would never go back to dig again and here we are, back at the farm. He should be taken off the investigation.”

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The family also want to ask why police haven’t invited Muriel’s convicted killer Nizam Hosein – who recently told the McKays where he buried her – to come and point to the burial site and perhaps save much work and time.

Hosein, who is now 76, served 20 years in a UK prison for murder before being deported to his native Trinidad. To let him return the Home Office would have to lift or suspend his deportation order.

But Detective Superintendent Katherine Goodwin, in overall charge of the operation, told the family recently she would be “happy to meet him” if Hosein came back.

Mr McKay said: “If you were looking for buried gold you would bring in the person who buried it, surely? They are missing a trick, an obvious trick.

“When they showed me around on Tuesday they had hardly dug any of the site that’s been marked out. I can’t see how they are going to complete a proper search by Friday, which is what they said.”

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Police ‘aren’t using scanners’

Mr Dyer added: “They aren’t using scanners which we suggested would have given them much more focus on the likely place my grandmother was buried.”

The search, which began on Monday, is being done with the permission of the farm owner Ian Marsh. Footpaths that go through the farm have been blocked off and an air exclusion zone has been imposed.

Hosein, who was 22 at the time, kidnapped Muriel, 55, just after Christmas in 1969 with his older brother Arthur.

They mistook her for Anna, the wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch – who had just bought The Sun newspaper. Muriel was the wife of Murdoch’s deputy Alick McKay.

The Hosein brothers were convicted at the Old Bailey after one of the first murder trials without a body.

Sky News has contacted the Metropolitan Police for a response.