Taxi driver held by police in hunt for clubber Sian O'Callaghan

Police searching for nightclubber Sian O'Callaghan today arrested a taxi driver.

Shoppers told how a dozen officers in eight cars swooped on the man at a taxi rank outside an Asda supermarket in Swindon at about 11am.

Witnesses described seeing a thin white man, aged between 40 and 50, being handcuffed and taken away before his vehicle was towed off. The taxi was reported to bear the markings of a firm called Five Star which had recently started in the town.

Only hours earlier detectives had appealed for help to find a green Toyota Avensis estate taxi spotted in the area where Ms O'Callaghan, 22, was seen for the last time at the weekend.

The office administrator was filmed on CCTV leaving Suju nightclub in Swindon at 2.52am on Saturday after an evening out with her
girlfriends.

Police revealed this week that phone masts placed Miss O'Callaghan's mobile phone somewhere in the 4,500-acre Savernake Forest just 34 minutes after she left. About 400 members of the public, including friends and family, joined police in the painstaking search of the woodland.

The Swindon area commander, Chief Superintendent Steve Hedley, announced the arrest this afternoon but declined to reveal whether officers knew of Miss O'Callaghan's whereabouts.

He said: "A short time ago a man was arrested on suspicion of the kidnap of Sian O'Callaghan. Her family have been informed. We hope she is alive and we are certainly working to find her."

Miss O'Callaghan lived in an apartment just half a mile away with her boyfriend Kevin Reape, 25.