Police searching for a missing doctor, Thomas Shanks, last night arrested a 47-year-old man in Glasgow, according to West Yorkshire police.
Police said the man was arrested in the Lennoxtown area of Glasgow in connection with a shooting on Thursday night in which a young nurse was killed outside a public house in Castleford, West Yorkshire.
The man was arrested at 7.50 p.m. and taken to a police station in Glasgow, where he was being interviewed. The man was arrested as a result of a tip-off from the Sun newspaper. The paper's Scottish editor alerted police after receiving a phone call from the man's brother.
He called from his home in Glascow and revealed that the man had phoned him from a pay phone in nearby Strathblane. The brother said he feared the man was about to commit suicide.
A widespread search had been under way for an "armed and dangerous" doctor who went on the run after his lover was shot outside the public house. Ms Vicky Fletcher (21) died of multiple wounds when a gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon in the pub car-park in Castleford.
Police warned the public not to approach Dr Thomas Shanks (47), an anaesthetist and former soldier who apparently claimed to have been in the SAS, and urged him to give himself up.
Detectives believed the doctor, originally from Glasgow, might have been heading for the Birmingham area in a grey Peugeot 205 car.
West Midlands police mobilised an armed response unit in the city, closed a school where his former wife works, and took the woman and her nine-year-old daughter into police protection. Other relatives were also moved from their homes as a precaution.
Dr Shanks and Ms Fletcher both worked at Pontefract General Infirmary, where the nurse died of wounds to her back, arms and legs early yesterday. They had been having a stormy, though long-standing, relationship.
Ms Fletcher had been drinking with friends in the Castlefields pub shortly before the gunman opened fire.
Mr Stephen Thackray (30), who was celebrating his last night as manager of the premises, said it was a scene of "pandemonium".
Ms Fletcher saw the gunman's face at the window, he said. "She went outside to meet him and then all hell broke loose. Shots were firing everywhere and everyone dived for cover. Everyone was shouting `get down, get down'.
"She was outside on her own and the firing went on, then we saw the man casually walk back to his car, get into it and calmly drive away.
"There were about 80 people inside the pub and bullets came straight through the inner doors and went into the bar. Glass and mirrors were shattered."
He said people waited until the firing had stopped before they went out to attend to Ms Fletcher.
"We brought out as many bar towels as I could get my hands on, I brought down the quilt from my bedroom, we just tried to stop the bleeding, there was nothing else we could do but wait for the ambulance."
There were 20 spent cartridges outside the pub and two bullets inside it.
A police source said the woman had walked out of the pub into the car-park, where the gunman opened fire. Attempting to flee, she managed to scale metal railings and was heading back to the pub's entrance when the gunman fired a second burst, leaving her injured on the ground.
Det Supt Paul Johnston of West Yorkshire police, leading the investigation, said he had taken the unusual step of naming the doctor because police ha a "duty of care" to protect the public.