Two held after girl's mutilated body found

The dismembered body of a girl aged 15 who had been missing since Sunday has been found in bin bags on a south London estate, Scotland Yard said.

A man and a woman, both aged 47, were being questioned at two police stations last night after the discovery of the body of Rochelle Holness. Her remains had been left near a block of flats at Milford Towers in Catford, south London.

Rochelle's address has not been disclosed, but she was believed to have lived near by. The arrested couple, both white, are not believed to have been related to or known by Rochelle.

Rochelle, who was of mixed Afro-Caribbean parentage, was last seen on Sunday at about 7pm when she told her mother she was going out to use a telephone box to call a friend; the box is close to the place where her body was found. Her family believed that when she did not return, she had gone to stay with the friend. Police were called when she did not return on Tuesday.

On Wednesday morning, in what was initially treated as a separate incident, paramedics were called to a flat in Milford Towers to deal with what was initially believed to have been an attempted suicide.

Police were called and the couple were arrested; the man was treated in hospital before being discharged back into police custody.

The remains were found in a partially concealed paved area near the foot of the flats.