A man wanted by police for two sex attacks including an attempted murder on Ilkley Moor has been arrested at a Cornish seaside resort.

Police launched a nationwide manhunt to find David Newton, 55, after he left his West York-shire home and headed south.

He was traced to Cornwall where he was arrested at 4.15pm yesterday, West Yorkshire Police said.

A force spokesman said: “Officers searching for 55-year-old David Newton have made an arrest in Hayle, Cornwall.”

Detectives from West Yorkshire Police's Homicide and Major Inquiry Team have made a series of appeals since Newton left his home in Knottingley, near Pontefract on Friday.

He was seen checking into a guest house in the resort of St Ives, Cornwall, on Saturday before leaving the following day, a West Yorkshire Police spokesman said.

Officers recovered his blue Landrover Freelander after it was caught on camera heading down the M5 towards the South-West.

Coastguards and a police helicopter were drafted in to help with the search following the latest sighting by a man in Portreath, 15-miles along the coast, it has been reported.

Following a three-day search of the St Ives area, the father-of-four was arrested five miles away in Hayle, a resort popular with surfers.

West Yorkshire Police were yesterday (TUES) transporting Newton back be quizzed at a station in the force's area, the spokesman said.

He is wanted in connection with an attack on Ilkley Moor two years ago. The attack has been linked to a rape committed almost nine years earlier, on a 16-year-old girl in Primrose Valley, Halton, Leeds.

The Ilkley attack involved a 52-year-old woman who was walking her dog above the Panorama Reservoir on the moor on June 26, 2006.

She appeared anonymously on the BBC's Crimewatch programme in a bid to trace her attacker.