A Bradford University graduate has told of her harrowing part in trying to bring former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic to trial for war crimes.

Charlotte Hamilton is part of a team of international experts investigating atrocities carried out in the war in Kosovo to provide forensic evidence for the UN International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague. She has spent six weeks in Kosovo carrying out post mortems on the war dead excavated from mass graves.

Charlotte, 34, was handpicked by UN officials visiting Bradford University after she gained a first class degree in chemistry with pharmaceutical and forensic science. She had to cope with a high level of horrors.

"Essentially they were looking for a person who was strong, mature and level-headed because it was absolutely horrific," she said. "On a human scale, we were dealing with situations where entire families of victims were side by side on autopsy tables. Many of the sights were heartbreaking. No one was spared in these massacres, from unborn children to 90-year-olds.

"The victims' injuries were horrific and went beyond the worst nightmare imaginings of mutilation and torture. This was the common consensus amongst the most experienced of forensic personnel there."

The experts ranged from FBI staff and crime-scene investigators at Princess Diana's death to teams who have recovered the dead from the Vietnam War and Rwanda. But they also took their own lives in their hands as graves were often booby-trapped to blow up investigators.

Striking memories for Charlotte include a girl who survived the torture and massacre of her entire family and whose sole surviving possession was a photograph of her father's decomposing face taken at an exhumation site. Checking the files, Charlotte discovered she had carried out his post mortem.

Charlotte, who has also trained in criminology and worked with Bradford Social Services, is currently studying for a PhD in Cancer Research, but plans to join further UN missions.