DETECTIVES have arrested a man over the murder of a North-East student.

Finnish-born Sara Cameron was found dead in a field near her home in Earsdon, North Tyneside, on the morning of Good Friday, April 21, 2000. She had been strangled.

The Northumbria University sports management student had been with friends in Newcastle the previous evening, to celebrate winning a work placement at the Sydney Olympics. She caught the last Metro train home from Monument station, in Newcastle city centre, then left Shiremoor Metro station intending to walk to her Garden Terrace flat.

But she never arrived and neighbours found her body under a hedge early the next morning.

Officers from Northumbria Police, working with the Sussex force, arrested a 29-year-old man in Sussex at 6.30am yesterday. Last night, he was being questioned at a police station in the North-East.

Police would not reveal if the suspect was originally from the North-East or how inquiries led them to the South.

Last night, Ms Cameron's father, Roy, 63, of Devon, appealed for anyone with information to come forward.

Mr Cameron said: "As a father I have one thing left to do for my child and that is to see she gets justice."

Police suspect that Ms Cameron's killer had extensive local knowledge because he dumped her clothing several hundred yards away in a wooded area known as The Redda, behind South Wellfield Middle School, in Whitley Bay, North Tyneside.

Detectives believe the murderer stayed there for some time and would have been covered in mud when he left.

The investigation has already involved DNA testing. Police took information from 18,000 people and 3,700 voluntary DNA samples.

Through this, they were able to eliminate 3,500 people from their inquiries.

The force also turned to Ministry of Defence chiefs, who enhanced closed-circuit television pictures of two men police wanted to question over the murder.

So far, these men have not come forward.