A man has been charged with raping a girl at knifepoint in a tent 16 years ago while her two friends lay terrified next to her.

The 50-year-old was questioned by police on Wednesday about an incident in the Calf Close area of Jarrow, South Tyneside, on July 30, 1989.

He had been highlighted as a suspect by officers investigating dozens of unrelated rapes and sex attacks throughout the North.

At the time, three children, two girls and a boy, had been camping in a tent on a field where a Metro station now stands. A man crept into the tent and held a knife to the throat of a 14-year-old girl.

She was then raped by her attacker, as her terrified friends lay only inches away.

A manhunt was set up after the attack but, despite carrying out house-to-house inquiries and making numerous public appeals for information, the rapist was never caught and the investigation eventually fell dormant.

Breakthroughs in DNA-profiling techniques led to further inquiries and a suspect was identified under what is now known as the Phoenix Investigation.

He was charged with rape yesterday and will appear before South Tyneside magistrates on Friday, November 11.