Can Not Empty the Trash

For some reason I can not empty my trash. There are over 16,000 items in there and it is really running down my free space on the hard drive. When trying to empty the Trash it keeps saying that there are items locked e.g. whatsnew.htm is locked and therefore I can not continue with the deletion of the items.
Does anyone know why this happens and what I can do to correct the problem? All I want to do empty my trash but this seems to be a little more difficult than it should be!
Thanks

Hi Welcome to the Discussions.
Try holding down the option key and select Empty Trash. If that doesn't work, open the trash, control+click on the locked file and select Get Info from the contextual menu. Uncheck Locked in the window that opens and enter your password when asked. Close the window and empty the trash.
If those things don't work there are a few more ways to do it.
John

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