Alicia suspect questioning extended

Police have been given permission to question a 39-year-old man about the disappearance of 18-year-old college student Alicia Eborne for a further 36 hours.

Magistrates granted police the custody extension for the unnamed man, believed to be a bus driver, on Saturday.

The man was arrested on Thursday night on suspicion of abducting the teenager, who has not been seen since leaving her home in Corntown, Devon, on November 7.

Alicia was last seen leaving her home in the Dartmoor hamlet at 8.45am to catch a bus to college.

Some of the 60-strong team of officers working on the case are continuing to scour hedgerows and fields along the seven-mile bus route.

So far officers have found no trace of the teenager or her possessions.

Officers are working on the assumption that Alicia walked the half-mile from Corntown to nearby Cornwood and caught the Plymouth-bound bus.

Police would not confirm that the 39-year-old man being held for questioning was a bus driver.

Chief Superintendent Liam McGrath said: "We have to plan for all eventualities. Clearly we would hope, as everybody does, that Alicia will be found alive and well and that may well happen.

"What we also have to do is follow all lines of inquiry that would lead us to gain evidence of any alternative and that is what we are doing at the moment."

Most watched News videos