Police mum held over model killing

London, Nov.13 : British police have arrested the mother of a footballer accused of murdering 19-year-old Amy Leigh Barnes at her home in Farnworth, Bolton.

Forty-nine-year-old Melda Wilks, a police community officer who helped schools in the area combat knife crimes, was arrested three hours after her 21-year-old footballer Ricardo Morrison appeared in court to answer questions regarding the murder, he has been accused of perpetrating.

Wilks was last night being questioned on suspicion of assisting an offender, reports The Telegraph.

She was seized shortly after 1 p.m. at an address in Birmingham and driven 80 miles for questioning at a Bolton police station.

Amy died in hospital on Saturday from stab wounds. Morrison was later arrested at an address in Birmingham.

According to The Times, Barnes had moved into her own flat recently after living with her parents. She was found dead there at the weekend.

The former public schoolgirl had taken part in photoshoots for Playboy and Cosmopolitan magazines, was a finalist in the Miss British Isles modelling competition in 2007 and in last year's Model of the Year competition. A friend said that she had dated several Premier League footballers.

One friend said: "Amy Leigh was the life and soul of the party. She was very popular and loved going out night after night. She knew loads of footballers and went on dates with them."

Barnes was a former pupil of the Lords Independent School in Bolton. She left school to study performing arts at Pendleton College in Salford and taught drama to young people at the Phoenix charity in Bolton.

Until recently she lived with her mother, Karyn, an artist, and her stepfather, John, in Egerton, near Bolton. In an interview with her local newspaper she said: "I want to stick with modelling now. I've been getting more work and my parents are behind me all the way."

She had been taken on to the books of the Nemesis casting and model agency recently. She had also dated the Blackburn Rovers striker Benni McCarthy. Players on her social networking websites include Fraizer Campbell, of Tottenham Hotspur, Phil Jagielka, of Everton, and Leroy Lita, of Norwich City.

A statement issued by her family said: "Words cannot express the pain we are in. We will not rest until justice has been done for our gorgeous daughter."

Amy has become the 28th teenager to be killed in London this year.

ANI