Suspect re-arrested over murder of Wakefield schoolgirl Elsie Frost in 1960s

Detectives investigating the unsolved murder of a Wakefield schoolgirl in the 1960s have today re-arrested a 79-year-old suspect.

The body of 14-year-old Elsie Frost was found just off a canal towpath in Horbury on October 9, 1965.

She had been attacked from behind and then stabbed in the back and head as she was through a railway tunnel.

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Her killing went on to become one of Britain's longest-running unsolved murder investigations.

Police reopen 1965 murder of Wakefield schoolgirl Elsie Frost

In a dramatic breakthrough in September, West Yorkshire Police's Homicide and Major Enquiry Team arrested a pensioner in Berkshire.

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The man, named in reports as Peter Pickering, was released on bail but now been arrested again.

A police spokesman said a 79-year-old man had been taken to a police station in the Thames Valley area, where he will be interviewed by detectives working on the investigation.

The man has also been arrested in connection with a separate offence of kidnap and rape which took place in 1972.

Officers in West Yorkshire renewed efforts to find Elsie's killer in 2015 with a fresh appeal five decades on from her death.

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It yielded new intelligence which led to the arrest in September.

In 1966, Ian Bernard Spencer, then aged 33, was charged with the schoolgirl's murder.

He was subsequently cleared on the orders of the judge who heard the case at trial.