404 errors and Errordocuments

I've set up using a .htaccess file an error document like below

Errordocument 404 error.php

Which works ok for a user but when the googlebot comes round I see that instead of giving a 404 error it gives it a 302 redirect to error.php

Which means google keeps visiting those pages and old pages aren't removed.

Can anyone advise on what I should do differently so the server responds with a real 404 error?

Bert

I put all my error document in a sub directory called errors, I then updated my robot file to ignore this directory. Not sure if this will help you at all tho.