A 12-year-old girl was tonight still being questioned by West Yorkshire Police investigating the attempted murder of a boy aged five, who was led from the back garden of his home and subjected to an apparent 'hanging' attempt in woodland.

This evening detectives, who originally arrested five children aged 11 and 12, released an 11-year-old boy and a girl without charge.

Two boys aged 12 were released this morning, along with the 12-year-old girl after magistrates refused to extend her time in custody. But she was rearrested later this afternoon and is now the only one still remaining in custody.

Specialist officers are still piecing together exactly what happened to victim Anthony Hinchcliffe, who is being gently questioned at a special interview suite for children, in the company of his relatives.

Anthony's family say he was lured away from the garden of his home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, by a young girl. He was discovered two hours later wandering, distressed and with rope burns and bruises around his neck, by his cousin Tracey Jones, 22.

He is believed to have been led to scrubland known locally as Devil's Ditch, where he was allegedly beaten and tortured by up to eight children and tied to a tree. Detectives have refused to confirm the exact nature of his injuries, but have said that wounds to his neck were "consistent with ligature marks".

His father Mark Hinchliffe, 36, who is separated from the boy's mother, Terri Brown, told the Daily Mirror: "It sounds to me as though he was dragged through bushes and hanged by a rope.

"He loves playing about — he’s an active lad. He’s got loads of friends but something like this . . . you don’t know what to do, do you? "

Miss Jones - who found him wandering alone outside a chip shop - told the Yorkshire Post: "It was like Jamie Bulger."

The incident has raised memories of the case in which two-year-old Jamie was led away from his mother by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both aged 10, who tortured and killed him on a railway line.

Denise Fergus, the mother of murdered Jamie, spoke of her relief today that Anthony Hinchliffe had been reunited with his mother. In a statement, Ms Fergus said: "Thank God, despite the trauma suffered by this five-year-old boy, he has been safely reunited with his mother."

Miss Jones has told how the youngster had been playing in the back garden while his mother, Terry, washed the dishes. When she called him in for dinner she found he had disappeared. The family began a desperate search for Anthony, who was on a half-term break from Chickenley Primary School.

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