POLICE have been granted a 36-hour extension to question a man in connection with the murder of a peace campaigner almost 20 years ago.

The man was arrested on Friday and was being held in an unnamed police station in connection with the murder of Hilda Murrell in Shropshire in 1984.

The partly clothed spinster was found in March that year in a wood six miles from her home in Shrewsbury.

She had been stabbed and left to die.

Miss Murrell's house had been broken into and it was suggested an intruder may have been looking for classified information connected with her nephew, a naval intelligence officer during the Falklands War.

Miss Murrell was the aunt of Cdr Robert Green, who passed the order for the sinking of the Belgrano in May 1982.

There were claims she may have hidden papers about the controversial sinking of the Argentine ship for him.