Trini man held at Heathrow

The suspect, who has been living in the Bilborough area of Nottingham, was held by officers after he boarded flight BW 901 to Trinidad. The flight arrived at Piarco at 6.10 pm yesterday.

One passenger interviewed shortly after the plane arrived at Piarco recounted that the suspect was held at seat number 26, near the aircraft’s toilet.

Shortly before the pilot announced that they were about to take-off, several passengers were surprised to see six uniformed and plain-clothes British policemen board the aircraft.

They went straight to seat number 26 and asked the man his name. He identified himself. He was permitted to remove his overhead luggage which the police seized. The man then calmly disembarked from the aircraft accompanied by the British officers.

According to the arriving passenger, the whole operation took less than five minutes. The plane left London shortly afterwards.

The passenger recalled that the officers boarded the plane at 7 am TT time yesterday and detained the man who they claimed had been residing in the United Kingdom illegally with his parents. The man had earlier been named as a suspect in the shooting and a search was on to find him.

A spokeswoman yesterday said that the suspect will be taken to Nottinghamshire and interviewed by detectives investigating Bown’s shooting.

Bown was shot in the stomach after responding to a report of a burglary in the Lenton area of Nottingham shortly before midnight on Monday. She was with a male colleague when the pair spotted a suspect, according to Nottinghamshire police.

The policewoman was shot in the lower abdomen, below the level of her body armour, just seconds after getting out of her patrol car. Bown was nearing the end of a two-year probationary period with the force, and had only recently been transferred to the city centre beat.

She had a second operation on Thursday after undergoing emergency surgery on Tuesday. Her family have kept a vigil at her bedside at the Queen’s Medical Centre since the shooting.

Her condition remains stable, Nottinghamshire police said. Checks with the Trinidad police yesterday revealed that the suspect does not have a criminal record.