Police arrest man in his 20s over PCSO’s murder
Suspect held in connection with killing of Julia James, who was found bludgeoned to death in woods in Kent
DETECTIVES hunting the killer of police community support officer Julia James have arrested a man in his 20s, they revealed yesterday.
The arrest on Friday night came 10 days after James, 53, was found bludgeoned to death in a woodland near her home in Snowdown, Kent, shortly after leaving the house with her jack russell dog.
A Kent Police spokesman said on Saturday: “Officers investigating the death of Julia James have arrested a man in connection with her murder. A man in his 20s from the Canterbury area was arrested at 9.30pm on Friday 7 May 2021, and remains in custody.”
Police said the man in custody was a British national. A house in the former mining village of Aylesham, was later taped off by police, with forensics officers undertaking a search of the property in Sunshine Corner Avenue.
Officers with clipboards were seen going door to door, speaking to people living in surrounding houses on the new-build estate, close to the outskirts of the village.
Kent Police repeated their appeal for any information, with the force so far unable to confirm what the motive for the attack was. Asst Chief Constable Tom Richards said: “If you were in the Snowdown area between 1pm and 4.30pm on Tuesday 27th April please contact us. This includes anyone local who may have seen something out of place at the time, or who came across someone who made them feel uneasy, such as feeling compelled to cross the road or change the route they were walking.”
The arrest came after Kent Police said they were no longer seeking information about a man in a photograph they had released earlier. Officers had released an image on Friday of a man they said could be of “crucial importance” to the investigation. It emerged last night that a woman claimed her daughter recognised the man in the photograph, which had been shared on the force’s Facebook page. She posted a comment that was spotted by James’s daughter, Bethan Coles, 31, who wrote: “Please go to police if you have any information.” But later in the day the force said the man had been identified and they were no longer appealing for information about him.
James’s body was found at 4.08pm on Tuesday, April 27. She had been walking her dog and a post mortem examination revealed she had died from significant head injuries.
A team of officers from the National Crime Agency’s Major Crime Investigative Support unit is assisting with the investigation. Chief Constable Alan Pughsley previously confirmed that Kent Police had also asked other forces for assistance and that detectives from other parts of the UK were being drafted in to help with door-to-door inquiries and a fingertip crime scene search.