A journalist at The Herald in Glasgow has told how he stumbled across missing couple Naomi Mills and Matthew Brooks while driving home after filing his copy on the story.

Highland correspondent David Ross had spent a long day standing freezing on the causeway across the Kyle of Tongue, on Sutherland's north coast, waiting for any information on the couple, when he spotted two people fitting their description walking along the road on his drive home.

At first David couldn't believe that it could be them but, intrigued, stopped off in a lay-by half a mile down the road and watched them as they made their way towards him.

In a first person piece for The Herald the next day, he wrote: "What to do? Do I get out and approach them? (Excuse me, I am from The Herald and I was wondering if...)

"What happens if they immediately take to the hills and the man from The Herald has ruined the best lead the police have had all day? Ridicule all round.

"Or what happens if it is an entirely innocent couple who think they are being propositioned?"

So he called the police and they told him to stay where he was.

He wrote: "By this point the couple were approaching fast. They would clearly think it strange that a car had stopped in the middle of nowhere, with the light fading fast.

"So I pretended I was having an angry conversation on my mobile phone, and they passed unawares. They walked on and round the corner."

Shortly afterwards, the police arrived and took off, speeding past where the couple would have reached.

At about 8.15pm, he was informed that a couple fitting their description had been traced - confirming what he already suspected.

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