'Body found' in search for missing author Helen Bailey

A man is being questioned on suspicion of murder after the discovery of a body at the home of missing novelist Helen Bailey.

Detectives made the gruesome find in the grounds of her home in Royston, Herts, three months after she was last seen.

The 55-year-old local man was re-arrested on suspicion of murder on Friday, having previously been arrested on Monday, when specialist teams began searching the property, Hertfordshire Police said.

The 51-year-old children's novelist, who wrote the Electra Brown novels, was last seen walking her dog on April 11.

Detective Chief Superintendent Paul Fullwood, who leads the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire major crime unit, said: "Helen's family have been updated of this significant development and are continuing to receive support from specialist family liaison officers."

Ms Bailey was last seen several weeks after the fifth anniversary of the death of her husband, John Sinfield, who drowned on a holiday in Barbados in February 2011.

The man was additionally arrested on Monday on suspicion of disposing of a body in a manner likely to obstruct the coroner and on suspicion of theft of money belonging to Mrs Bailey, Hertfordshire Police said at the time. He was last night being questioned in Stevenage.

In April, following her disappearance, extensive searches were carried out at Mrs Bailey's holiday home in Broadstairs, Kent, where friends originally said they believed the author might have gone in order to have ''some time to herself''.