Sex murder suspect held

Police today caught murder suspect Doraj Miah ? the teenager wanted for questioning over the sex killing of art teacher Hazel Prager.

He was spotted on a street in Barkingside by a member of the public who telephoned police, and was picked up at 7.30am. He has been taken to a North London police station for questioning about the killing.

The 19-year-old had been named by Scotland Yard as the man they wanted to question about the killing of Miss Prager, 46, who was found with her throat slashed in Hainault, Essex. It emerged that Miah was a mental patient who was turned away from hospital hours before the murder.

Staff at St Clement?s Hospital in Bow said they could not admit him because there were no beds and referred him to a GP. In another twist, it emerged that Miah was forced out of his Bethnal Green home six weeks ago after a fire bomb attack.

Police today confirmed that Miss Prager, who was naked apart from her socks when her body was found near a public footpath on Aldborough Hatch farm on Tuesday, had been sexually assaulted. A bloodstained kitchen knife was recovered from the scene.

Miss Prager, who was single and lived in Camden, was visiting her parents and was attacked on a footpath through woodland a few hundred yards from their home.

Miah has a history of psychiatric problems and was forced out of his home by a petrol bomb attack six weeks ago. Police are still investigating the attack on 2 April on the flat at Monkswell House, Turin Street, where he lived with his mother and two brothers.

The family was rehoused, but since the attack Miah is believed to have been living rough in the Hainault area, although he had recently moved to an address. Neighbours of Miah in Bethnal Green described him as a loner. One said: "He was always on his own. He never wanted to mix with the other guys and was always by himself."

Another man said: "Before the fire he went off to stay with family somewhere and has not been around since. He used to hang around here but always on his own. Since he and the family left, the flat has been empty. People knew him because he used to come up and talk rubbish."

Police say Miss Prager, a visual arts teacher with Kensington and Chelsea Council, had been walking back to her parents' home after swimming at a pool in nearby Barkingside. She is believed to have been strangled by her bra. Her body was found around 1.15pm by a boy on a bicycle.

Detectives are looking at the possibility that she tried to drag herself from the spot where she was left dying. Her swimming bag and clothes were nearby.

A neighbour in the block of flats where she lived in Camden said: "She was really very nice, a quiet gentle person who would not have hurt anybody. It's a terrible shame. She was a quiet woman who kept herself to herself."

Miss Prager's parents Peter and Sylvia, who are of Hungarian origin, returned to their home last night with their younger daughter Alison, who said: "We don't want to talk."

? A 23-year-old woman has been stabbed to death outside the Shaw Plaza Hotel in Euston Road, Camden. Police found a woman with serious stab wounds to the stomach but she died later in hospital. A 44-year-old man was arrested last night and was to be questioned by detectives.