Now police hunting bridge jogger arrest a SECOND innocent man
POLICE hunting the jogger who pushed a woman in front of a bus arrested a second innocent suspect, it was revealed yesterday.
It happened hours after a millionaire banker was released with no further action in connection with the attack on a pedestrian on Putney Bridge.
In a statement criticising the Metropolitan Police yesterday, Eric Bellquist, 41, the first suspect, said he had to employ bodyguards after receiving death threats when he was accused of the ‘abhorrent crime’.
The American was held last Thursday on suspicion of carrying out the attack on May 5, even though he was in the US at the time. After his lawyers publicly revealed they had ‘irrefutable evidence’ he was not in the country, the Met waited another 24 hours before announcing on Saturday he had been released with no further action.
But yesterday it emerged that shortly after clearing Mr Bellquist, officers wrongly arrested another innocent 41-year- old. This time, they realised their error quickly and the suspect was discounted from the investigation almost immediately after being held on Saturday.
But Scotland Yard did not give details of the second arrest at the time as it had only just revealed that it had got it wrong with Mr Bellquist.
Yesterday lawyers for Mr Bellquist, a partner at a Pall Mall investment firm, said in a statement: ‘Our client is pleased to have had his name cleared… but obviously very upset to have been implicated at all in this abhorrent crime.’
The Met says it is pursuing fresh leads in the case after being flooded with calls from the public after CCTV footage was released showing the attack in south west London.
The victim was walking to work at 7.40am when she was barged into the road by a runner as a double- decker bus headed towards her. The driver, travelling at 12mph, swerved at the last second, narrowly missing her head. The jogger did not stop.