Detectives looking for missing BBC make-up artist Diane Chenery-Wickens today found a body six miles from her home.

Investigators are this afternoon trying to discover if the body is that of Bafta-nominated Mrs Chenery-Wickens, 48, who has styled characters on shows including Casualty and The League of Gentlemen.

The corpse was unearthed in woods off Worth Lane in the village of Little Horsted, near Uckfield in East Sussex.

Mrs Chenery-Wickens's husband David, 51, a self-styled spiritualist ministeris on bail after being arrested on suspicion of her murder.

He separated from his wife several years ago although the pair apparently continued to live happily at their £500,000 cottage in Duddswell, also near Uckfield, until her disappearance in January.

When he answered bail last month, Mr Chenery-Wickens arrived at the police station with new girlfriend Kerry Lippett, 39, with whom he is now said to be living in Crowborough, 11 miles from the spot of today's find.

A Sussex police spokesman said: "Following a report from a woman walking her dog, police discovered a decomposed body in woodland off Worth Lane, Little Horsted, just before 10am this morning. Officers are at the scene."

When asked whether the body was that of Mrs Chenery-Wickens, the spokesman said: "Obviously that is a line of enquiry we are pursuing but it is too early to say at the moment."

Mrs Chenery-Wickens vanished on 24 January after taking a train from East Grinstead to Shepherd's Bush for a meeting at the BBC.

Mr Chenery-Wickens, a former lorry driver, is believed to have met his wife while dropping off deliveries at the BBC studios.

Former friends of Mr Chenery-Wickens and colleagues have told how he is "obsessed with hokery-pokery" including spiritualist readings.

The missing make-up artist's credits also include Dead Ringers, whose star Jon Culshaw launched a public appeal to find her.