In this paper we study the homology of groups with coefficients in metabelian Lie powers, and apply the results to obtain information about elements of finite order in certain free central extensions of groups. Perhaps the most prominent example to which our results apply is the relatively free group

where Fd is the (absolutely) free group of rank d. Thus Fd(Bc) is the free group of rank d in the variety Bc of all groups which are both centre-by-(nilpotent of class ≤ c − 1)-by-abelian and soluble of derived length ≤ 3. It was pointed out in [1] that the order of any torsion element in Fd(Bc) divides c if c is odd and 2c if c is even. This, however, is a conditional result as it does not answer the question of whether or not there are any torsion elements in (1·1). Up to now, this question had only been answered in case when c is a prime number [1] or c = 4 [8]. In these cases Fd (Bc) is torsion-free if d ≤ 3, and elements of finite order do occur in Fd(Bc) if d ≥ 4. Moreover, the torsion elements in Fd(Bc) form a subgroup, and the precise structure of this torsion subgroup was exhibited in [1] in the case when c is a prime and in [8] for c = 4. In the present paper we add to this knowledge. On the one hand, we show that for any prime p dividing c the group Fd(Bc) has no elements of order p for all d up to a certain upper bound, which takes arbitrarily large values as c varies over all multiples of p. On the other hand, we show that for prime powers does contain elements of order p whenever d ≥ 4. Finally, we exhibit the precise structure of the p-torsion subgroup of when p ≠ 2. Precise statements are given below (Corollaries 1 and 2). Our results on (1·1) are a special case of more general results (Theorems 1′−3′) which refer to a much wider class of groups, and which are, in their turn, a consequence of our main results on the homology of metabelian Lie powers (Theorems 1–3).