The Sunday Independent stole a march on the nationals with its exclusive coverage of the dramatic breakthrough in the Caroline Dickinson murder case.

Details of the match between DNA samples taken from Spaniard Francisco Arce Montez and those at the Brittany hostel where the 13-year-old Cornish schoolgirl was raped and murdered in July 1996 were only confirmed 40 minutes before the first edition of the Plymouth-based Newsquest title went to press.

Yet within that time, editor Andrew Kelly’s small team had compiled an exclusive lead under the banner headline: “Caroline Cops: We’ve got him.”

Andrew said: “It was a fantastic effort by our small team. We turned around the copy and the pictures in double-quick time and were able to give our readers the sort of quality read which has become our hallmark.”

Reporters produced two pages of background coverage of the unsolved crime, together with colour pictures from the late-night police conference at Launceston, more than 50 miles from the office.

It was only last week that 51-year-old Montez had been identified as a suspect in the case of the schoolgirl murdered during a Launceston College visit to Pleine Fougeres.

Initial enquiries by the Indy’s chief reporter Alex Peek indicated that there was unlikely to be any major development until French police had flown to Miami to interview Montez and take new DNA samples.

Montez was being held there following his arrest for breaking into a hostel bedroom shared by six women and committing an act of ‘lewd and lascivious behaviour’.

It was only a stroke of luck that a Detroit immigration officer remembered reading about the Dickinson case in an English Sunday paper – and that put the inquiry on a new track.

The chances of a new angle on the story seemed so remote that the Indy’s deputy editor Nikki Rowlands was already drawing up the front page with another lead when the call came through at noon on Saturday about two press conferences being held at identical times in Cornwall and France.

Kelly backed his hunch that a major development was about to be announced and dispatched reporter Kirsty Turner to Launceston, along with Plymouth freelance photographer Tony Carney whose digital camera made sure that the Indy’s first editions carried the full story.

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