Police in India arrested a 28-year-old local man today in connection with the rape and murder of British teenager Scarlett Keeling.

Inspector Kishan Kumar from Goa Police said local man Samson D’Souza was detained after witnesses came forward alleging they saw him raping the 15-year-old from Devon on the beach at the resort of Anjuna in Goa on February 18.

“This man was seen with the girl near to where her dead body was found. It was evidently clear this man was raping her,” he said.

“We have sufficient evidence to show this man was having sex with the girl in the early hours of February 18. We have established that he was raping her.”

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The police official added that Indian officers were now working on a murder investigation. “This part of the investigation is still going on,” he said.

The latest development comes after a second post-mortem examination carried out on Scarlett’s body after pressure from her mother Fiona MacKeown.

Ms MacKeown, from Bideford, has spent the weeks since her death demanding an investigation and claiming that her daughter, who had 50 marks on her body, was murdered.

Initially Indian police said the death was an accidental drowning but have now launched a murder investigation because the second post-mortem results showed she had been attacked.

The results also found she did not have enough water in her lungs to have drowned.

Other reports today have said that three men are being questioned as part of the investigation. Police official Bosko George said the men were detained but have not been arrested or charged with any crime.

The case may now turn on the potential testimony of a British witness who contacted Scarlett’s family through a foreign intermediary and claims to have seen the teenager being assaulted behind the beach bar at the resort of Anjuna where she was last seen alive at about 4am on February 18.

The unnamed man, reportedly known by the pseudonym “Nick Massala’, has since gone into hiding after claiming to have been frightened by the reputation of the Goa police as corrupt.

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