MYSTERY surrounds the fate of a man arrested on suspicion of murdering a North- East grandmother in Tunisia two years ago.

Pauline Richardson, from Bishop Auckland, was killed while on holiday in the Port El Kantaoui resort.

Police arrested a Tunisian man, then in his 20s, in connection with her murder, but his fate has not been made public.

A North-East coroner will conclude an inquest into the 64-year-old’s death in County Durham next month.

The hearing was opened and adjourned shortly after Mrs Richardson died in July 2008.

Internet posts on a foreign website said the Tunisian arrested on suspicion of the offence was convicted and given the death penalty.

However, that has not been confirmed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) or the Tunisian authorities.

An FCO spokeswoman said investigations in Tunisia were continuing.

Mrs Richardson, nee Stevens, had been reported missing by friends two days before her body was found.

It is thought the widow frequently visited the resort and had become involved with a man there.

One online comment from a “County Durham police worker”

at the time said she was killed when she tried to end the relationship.

Mrs Richardson’s death shocked those who knew her.

Family, friends and acquaintances remember her as a lovely woman and good friend with a great sense of humour.

She leaves daughter Beverley Sains and her husband, Mark, and grandchildren, Richard and Natalie, who are all from Bishop Auckland.

Speaking at the time of her death, her daughter said: “The news of her death has come as a dreadful shock.

“To be told that she has been killed is so hard to accept.

It has left us all totally numb.”

While Mrs Richardson’s husband, Matthew, was alive, she shared her time between a holiday home in Spain and their house in Gravesend, Kent.

She moved back to the Bishop Auckland area after she was widowed 12 years before her death.

Coroner Andrew Tweddle will hold an inquest in Chester-le-Street on Wednesday, September 15.