Police travel to Portugal to find murder suspect (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Police travel to Portugal to find murder suspect

Hayley RichardsWILTSHIRE police have flown to Portugal to join the search for the boyfriend of murdered mother-to-be Hayley Richards.

Police hunting Hayley's killer said two opportunities to apprehend her Portuguese boyfriend Hugo Quintas, who is now the prime suspect, were missed in the days before the murder.

Hayley's mother, Christine, has blamed the police for failing to save her daughter.

She said: "She (Hayley) went to them with a photo, with everything, and they did nothing.

"We are just so angry. She was my baby. We loved her. They don't know what they have done."

Waitress Hayley, 23, who was three months pregnant, was found with her throat cut at her home in Trowbridge on Saturday.

Less than a week earlier, Hayley had dialled 999 and reported that she had been attacked by Quintas.

Quintas, 23, was never apprehended by police over the alleged assault and police believe that on the day her body was found he caught a plane from Bristol airport to return to Portugal.

The case has prompted an international manhunt with officers in Wiltshire working with colleagues in Portugal and Interpol.

Wiltshire police said yesterday that although efforts were made to track Quintas down in the days between the alleged assault on Hayley and her murder, he was not arrested.

Assistant chief constable Peter Vaughan said during that time two potential opportunities for officers to arrest Quintas had not been taken.

Mr Vaughan said: "This is a cause of concern which requires further investigation."

He would not disclose details of the circumstances in which Quintas had been spoken to by officers during Hayley's final days because the matter has been voluntarily referred to the police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which is to investigate.

But Mr Vaughan said the encounters with Quintas had not been related to anything 'significant'.

Hayley's family said they understood he had not been arrested because an interpreter would have to be present.

Mr Vaughan stopped short of dismissing the claim, adding: "That should never be a bar to an arrest, there is a list of interpreters that are available in our custody suites."

In Trowbridge, police have been searching two addresses as well as carrying out house to house inquiries and employing intelligence officers as part of an operation involving more than 50 police.

Officers are also searching for the knife used in the killing.