Camp attack arrest

Jane Emerick
Police yesterday arrested a 45-year-old man in relation to an alleged sexual assault of a seven-year-old girl at a Torquay caravan park earlier this month.
Officers swooped on the man as he drove through Chelsea Heights, in Melbourne’s outer south-eastern suburbs, about 10am.
A Victoria Police spokesperson said Sexual Crimes Squad officers were questioning the man when the Independent went to press yesterday.
The spokesperson said investigators hoped he would “assist them with their enquiries”.
The man was held at Melbourne’s St Kilda Road police complex for questioning.
The spokesperson said police had also raided three homes at Chelsea Heights, Dromana and Keysborough in relation to the man’s arrest.
Police allege the seven-year-old girl was sexually assaulted while she slept in the annex of her family’s caravan with her 10 and 12-year-old brothers at 5.40am on January 2.
The suspected attacker crept into the tent and assaulted the girl before she cried out, waking her parents in the adjoining caravan.
The attack, at the peak of the Surf Coast’s busy summer holiday season, shocked holidaymakers at the fully-occupied Torquay Foreshore Caravan Park.
Police set up an information caravan in the weeks following the attack, receiving “hundreds” of tips from the public.
Last week police released images of a man they believed to be involved in the sex attack.
They described him as 16 and 22 years old, of Caucasian appearance and with blonde spiky hair.
Police were yesterday unable to explain the discrepancy between the description of the person wanted for questioning over the incident and the man arrested.
The spokesperson said police were “pleased” with the arrest.