Manchester attack: 'Trainee pilot' arrested as investigation spreads across Britain

A "trainee pilot" has been arrested as the investigation into the terror network behind Salman Abedi spreads across Britain. 

 The 23-year-old, understood to be Libyan, was arrested at a property in Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, more than 260 miles from the Manchester Arena where Abedi detonated a suicide bomb a week ago killing 22 people. 

Neighbours said that they were shocked that the police activity had reached their doorstep. 

Violet Mainda, the Kenyan-born owner of Violet’s Hairdresser’s beneath the flat, said: “He was a young Libyan guy who was always very jovial and nice.

“He said he was training to be a pilot at Shoreham Airfield and he had just completed doing that. I am really, really shocked by this. I can’t believe he had been arrested.

“He had a few friends and a girlfriend and always seemed very nice. I don’t know if he worked, I think he just studied to be a pilot. He said he was studying to become a pilot at Shoreham.”

Armed officers also swooped on sites across Manchester in a flurry of raids and arrests over the weekend as they worked to stamp out any lingering threat from co-conspirators to Monday's massacre.

The Sussex arrest early on Monday morning brings the number of people in custody in relation to the the attack to 14. 

Shoreham Airfield said that they did not have anyone available to comment. 

With the intense series of police operations showing no signs of abating:

• A 25-year-old man was held on suspicion of terror offences in the Old Trafford district.

• Thousands of runners turned out defiantly for the Great Manchester Run, pounding the streets of the city amid a heightened security operation.

• The NHS said 54 people injured in the attack were still being treated in eight hospitals with 19 receiving critical care.

• Home Secretary Amber Rudd revealed temporary exclusion orders, banning suspected jihadis from returning to the UK, had been used for the first time.

• CCTV stills of Abedi, bespectacled and casually clothed, were released by police in a plea for information about his movements between May 18 and the attack.

• A vigil, attended by hundreds, was held for 29-year-old victim Martyn Hett in Stockport.

On Sunday, counter-terror officers stormed addresses in Gorton, Rusholme and Moss Side.

Explosions were reported at several of the searches, but police would not comment on whether controlled blasts were used to gain entry.

Three people were arrested - and quickly de-arrested - during the afternoon's operation at Quantock Street, Moss Side, leading them to post an outraged sign on their front door.

It read: "This is what the police has caused and we have nothing to do with what happened in the bombing attack".

One Moss Side resident, who did not want to be named, said he heard a loud explosion "like a bomb going off" and saw a number of police vans in the street.

He said a group of young Middle Eastern men moved into the address around six months ago.

"There's a group of them knocking about with each other - they're from the Middle East," he added.

"A couple of them dress in the traditional Muslim robes.

"There was always a lot of coming and going in and out of that building.

"Every time I've been outside my flat there's someone there or a group of them sitting outside in a car."

The developments came hours after the Home Secretary said members of Abedi's circle could still be at large, despite a wave of arrests leading to the country's terror threat level being de-escalated.

Ms Rudd told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "The operation is still at full tilt, in a way.

"Until the operation is complete, we can't be entirely sure that it is closed."

Seven children were among the dead in what was the most costly terror attack to hit Britain since the July 7 bombings in 2005.

A total of 116 people required hospital care in the wake of the massacre.

The failure of security agencies to head off this week's attack was brought into the spotlight by the family of murdered Georgina Callander.

The 18-year-old was killed in the blast shortly after her favourite artist Ariana Grande left the stage at the Manchester Arena on Monday.

In a statement released through Greater Manchester Police, her family said: "I wish I could say that Georgina is one of the last to die in this way but unless our Government opens its eyes we know we are only another in a long line of parents on a list that continues to grow."