DURING his evidence yesterday Cairney said that bonfires at Seacroft — from which a retired firefighter told the trial he could smell burning human flesh — consisted of nothing more than old pianos and furniture.

The retired diver said: “When I no longer worked underwater I did wood carving, making museum quality copies of things.

“A lot of the carvings required, if possible, to have ivory on them and a lot of pianos have ivory keys.

“So I bought old furniture to get timber and I bought pianos for ivory.

“The frames inside the pianos went to people Avril [Jones] knew for other artwork.”

Asked how much of the pianos he used for carving, Carney replied: “Sometimes I just got the keys.”

Quizzed on what he did with the rest of the musical instruments, he said: “Burnt it.”

He said the bonfires were only ever topped up with other wooden material but he did cause a lot of smoke by burning a hedge and a garden shed with a rubber roof.

Asked by judge Lord Mathews when he burned the pianos, Cairney said: “I cannae tell you a date, I just don’t know a date.”