Police question man over girl's murder

A 52-year-old museum worker was being interviewed by detectives yesterday after the murder of a Danish schoolgirl on the Isle of Wight.

The 15-year-old's naked body was found face down in a quarry pit shortly before midnight on Tuesday. While the police refused to confirm suggestions that the foreign exchange student had been sexually assaulted, a post- mortem concluded that she died of asphyxiation.

Yesterday, as police officers questioned Richard Kemp, from Gosport, Hampshire, the council tried to calm local people and tourists.

While letters were sent to schools and youth groups, warning them to be vigilant, council leaders on the island, which is heavily reliant on tourism, insisted that there was no suggestion this was anything other than an isolated incident.

Detective Superintendent Alan Betts, the officer leading the murder investigation, said Mr Kemp was arrested late on Wednesday night.

"The arrest was made by a uniformed patrol in the western part of the Isle of Wight," he said.

Mr Kemp, who lives alone in a bedsit in a rundown part of Gosport, has worked as a maintenance worker at the town's Royal Navy submarine museum for 20 years.

Detectives searched his home while forensic science officers continued an intensive search of Brading Down, where the girl's body was discovered.

The alarm was raised on Tuesday night when the teen-ager, who had wandered off after telling friends she wanted time alone, failed to turn up at a beach party. An activity co-ordinator went off to search dense woodland and found her body in a clearing.

The girl, who was believed to come from the small town of Holbaek, near Copenhagen, had been staying with Paula and Steve Goodwin and their 10-year-old son, Mark, in Brading during a three-week exchange visit.

The couple said yesterday: "This is a huge shock and words cannot express how sorry we feel for her family.

"She was a lovely girl and a brilliant artist. We loved her as soon as she came to us on 4 July and we got on very well."

The girl's mother, who was tracked down late on Wednesday on holiday in Sweden, was due to arrive in Britain last night. Her father, who is said to be estranged from his wife and is living in Norway, learnt of his daughter's death yesterday.

James Crimp, from the STS language school, based in Sweden, which organised the trip, said: "[The mother] is distraught and shocked and understandably traumatised by the whole thing.

"Our staff are with her and she will be meeting police family liaison officers."

Fellow students, many of whom are now planning to return home early, wept during a memorial service at Christ Church in Sandown.

The Rev Howard Cunn-ington, who conducted the service, said: "At the beginning of the service I apologised to them on behalf of the island that such a terrible tragedy should happen here."

Residents of the Isle of Wight have been clearly shocked by such a gruesome death.

Claire Evans, a mother-of-two, said: "It's been very frightening, it's just shocking. You just do not hear about this sort of thing happening on the island and so close to home. It just goes to show you're not safe anywhere."

Meanwhile, local authority officials were trying to allay the fears of locals and tourists.

Shirley Smart, the leader of Isle of Wight Council, said the "appalling tragedy" was "not a true reflection of the island, which has a reputation as a safe place to live, work and visit".