Caroline parents see her killer for first time

The parents of schoolgirl Caroline Dickinson came face to face with the man accused of her murder for the first time today.

John Dickinson, his ex-wife Sue and their 19-year-old daughter Jenny watched intently as Francisco Arce Montes was brought into a court in Rennes.

Caroline was 13 when she was raped and suffocated in a youth hostel in Pleine-Fougères during a 1996 school trip from Launceston College in Cornwall.

Her attacker broke in at night and later left without disturbing any of the other girls sleeping in the same room as Caroline. She was discovered dead in her sleeping bag the next morning.

Montes, 54, was arrested in the United States in 2001 after he had been held for breaking into a similar hostel in Miami Beach.

He was extradited to France and at an earlier hearing admitted in a closed session of the court that he had killed Caroline.

But at the full trial he is expected to mount an "Ian Huntley" type defence, admitting that the girl died as a result of his actions but claiming he had not intended to kill her.

Montes, a Spanish drifter, was jailed in the Eighties for sex attacks in Germany and is also wanted on similar charges in Spain and a separate case in France.

He was led into court by two police officers and sat 10 feet from the Dickinsons. Mr Dickinson, 47, an environmental health officer and his ex-wife, a 45-year-old Plymouth nurse, are represented by French lawyer Rouzad Le Boeuf. He was applying to be allowed to question witnesses in the trial which is expected to last five days.

Montes was dressed in a scruffy sandy-coloured pullover and wore glasses. Asked by the senior judge if he understood French he replied: "Non, pas beaucoup" - not a lot. He was given an earpiece to pick up the translation. Proceedings were held up as Montes tried to have the trial postponed. Speaking in a weak and high-pitched voice, Montes told the judges in Spanish: "I came back to Rennes too late for my defence to be properly prepared."

However after deliberating for 30 minutes the senior judge Fabienne Doroy ruled that the trial should go ahead. Montes has been on hunger strike in the hospital wing of a prison near Paris after being attacked by fellow inmates. He is said to have psychiatric problems but prosecutors believe it is a ruse.

The start of today's trial is a personal victory for Mr Dickinson who campaigned tirelessly to keep the French investigation going.

He travelled to France 20 times, distributing leaflets appealing for information and mounting a legal bid to have the original investigating magistrate removed.

It was this pressure which forced the police to keep officers working full time on the case even when the trail seemed to have gone cold.

More than 7,500 people were questioned across Europe and 3,800 DNA tests were carried out, including all 425 men in Pleine-Fougères.

But it was only by chance that Montes was traced. A Detroit immigration officer saw newspaper headlines in Britain and checked files on his return to the US to find that Montes had been arrested on a similar charge. A DNA sample taken from him matched traces left at the scene of Caroline's murder in Brittany. The case continues