Danielle Gillam-Kirton, whose parents Pete and Fran Gillam died in a wildfire in Bedar, near Almeria, in July, has accused Spanish police of gross incompetence after discovering her father's bones in the family's burnt-out BMW five weeks after officers claimed the vehicle had been forensically searched and found empty. The couple, popular expats from Nottinghamshire who had retired to Spain, were among nine Britons from the same village killed in the July 9 blaze, and the case has raised serious questions about how Spanish authorities handled the aftermath for bereaved families still grieving.

Danielle and her husband first found a padel racquet in the car's boot on 12 August, a month after being told nothing remained inside, and returned to the pound on 19 August, where they found her father's phone, keys, coins and jewellery, before Danielle discovered what she believed to be a hip bone and other fragments in the footwell. She took the remains to Bedar's mayor, who was reportedly shocked, before handing them to the Guardia Civil, whose senior officers dismissed them as animal bones despite the area's wildlife being limited to goats and wild boar; the remains were nonetheless sent to a forensics laboratory in Madrid for examination.