Caroline suspect DNA 'very similar' to crime samples

French police investigating the murder of Caroline Dickinson say DNA taken from a prime suspect is very similar to that taken from the crime scene.

Yves Boiven, assistant public prosecutor in Rennes, told a news conference there is very important similarities with traces taken in Pleine-Fougeres where Caroline was killed.

DNA samples from Spanish waiter Francisco Arce Montez were flown to France from the US, where he is being held on suspicion of sex offences.

M Boiven said the French judicial authorities want to talk to the person held in Florida and to follow up investigations concerning him, but he refused to publicly name Montez.

He said police wanted to talk to the suspect in France, but he would not comment on whether or when a formal extradition application will be made to the US. The initial test results are made public at a press conference in the Bretagne town of Rennes.

Meanwhile, at a news conference in Launceston, Cornwall, Caroline's father John Dickinson described the news from France as a fantastic breakthrough.

He said: "After nearly five years of searching it looks as if we have been able to make progress in the investigation into Caroline's death."

Fighting back emotion, he went on: "We have never lost hope. This was such a horrendous crime it could not go unpunished. We would never have given up hope.

"It is a fantastic fact it has happened, absolutely brilliant."

He praised the vigilance of US immigration service official Tommy Ontko, who began investigations into Montez in relation to Caroline, saying: "I would like to shake his hand."

Caroline, 13, from Bodmin in Cornwall, was raped and suffocated as she slept with friends in a hostel in Pleine-Fougeres in Brittany while on a school trip to France in July 1996.

Montez, 51, was named by police in France as one of their suspects and the Spanish-born restaurant worker is wanted in connection with a series of assaults on teenage girls in hostels in the Loire Valley, 200 miles from where Caroline was killed.