Police arrest suspect in hunt for bin bag body parts murderer

Police investigating the murders of two women whose dismembered bodies were found in bin bags in north London arrested their main suspect last night.

Anthony Hardy, 53, a diabetic, was seized without a struggle shortly before 9pm near Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in Bloomsbury, central London, after a tip-off from a member of the public.

He had been caught on closed-circuit television at University College Hospital on Wednesday asking for medicine for a diabetes-related condition called peripheral neuropathy but left when staff began to query where he lived. Detectives believed that his quest for medication was their main chance of catching him.

Mr Hardy, who also suffers from depression and alcoholism, will be questioned over the murders of two unidentified women who were found earlier this week cut up in his flat. Some of their body parts had been dumped in bin bags nearby.

Police divers searched the Regent's Canal close to his ground-floor council flat in Royal College Street yesterday while forensic scientists examined the flat, where the torso of a woman aged 20 to 40 was found on Tuesday. A day earlier, police found the torso of a young woman and other human remains in bins in a neighbouring street. The heads, hands, and three feet are still missing.

A hacksaw is believed to have been used to dismember the women, though a power saw is also being examined. It is thought that the women may have been prostitutes.

Police had voiced fears for the safety of Kelly Anne Nicol, 24, who was seen with Mr Hardy on Boxing Day. But last night they said she had been seen twice recently in Falkirk, Scotland.

Commander Andy Baker said there remained a "number of unsolved murders we must have an open mind to". Among them is that of Paula Fields, 31, a prostitute found in Camden canal in February 2001. She had been cut into six pieces and her head has not been found.

Police have contacted Mr Hardy's wife, with whom he lived in Australia and had four children. After the marriage broke down more than 10 years ago, he moved back to Britain. He was questioned by police in January last year after a woman was found dead in his flat, but post-mortem tests showed she had died from natural causes.