POLICE today (Wednesday) arrested the prime suspect in the hunt for the gunman who murdered Pc Ian Broadhurst and tried to kill two of his colleagues in Leeds.

US-born Nathan Wayne Coleman, 37, was arrested in the north east of England after a tip-off.

He was held in Gateshead following a nationwide manhunt.

A spokesman said: "Following a call from a member of the public just after 2am today police attended an address in Northumbria where they arrested a man in his late 30s in connection with the murder of Pc Ian Broadhurst and the attempted murder of Pc Neil Roper and Pc James Banks on Boxing Day.

"The man is currently in custody in Northumbria where he is being held for questioning."

Police had been hunting Coleman, a former club doorman, since Boxing Day.

The dramatic development today follows a sensational day of police inquiries, which included details of a sighting of the suspect in Brighouse and the sealing-off of York railway station for three hours.

Married Pc Broadhurst, 34, from Cookridge, Leeds, died after he was gunned down on Boxing Day by a man who had been sitting in the back of his police car in Dib Lane, Leeds.

His colleague, Pc Roper, 45, was shot twice by the same man and is still recovering in hospital.

A third officer, Pc Banks, 26, was also shot at but the round ricocheted off his radio belt and baton buckle.

The shootings happened after Pc Broadhurst and Pc Roper approached a stolen BMW in Dib Lane. They placed the driver in the back of their patrol car and Pc Roper was about to handcuff him when he produced the gun.

On Monday detectives hunting the killer named Coleman as the prime suspect after searching his flat.

Hundreds of rail passengers were forced to wait in the freezing cold last night when armed officers swooped on York railway station - a key hub on the main east coast line.

Earlier in the day police revealed there had been a reported sighting of Coleman in Brighouse on Monday.

Guesthouse owner Dawn Collins, who runs the Elder Lea Lodge in Rastrick, believes Coleman could have rung her at the beginning of the week.

Mrs Collins said she took a call on Monday morning from a man looking for a place to stay. "He asked: `Don't you have anything now?'.

"I was a bit suspicious at the time but it was only afterwards when I heard that the gunman had been seen here that I thought it could have been him."

Coleman married a Yorkshire woman in 1997 shortly after he arrived in the UK.

But he had been living alone in Oakwood, Leeds, for the past four years following his divorce.