A man has been arrested in Dublin on suspicion of the murder of Mary Ward in Belfast last month.
The 22-year-old mother of one was found dead in her home last Tuesday, but is believed to have been killed the previous week.
Mary Ward died as a result of a number of wounds to her neck.
Police initially regarded her death as possible suicide, but announced on Monday that they had launched a murder investigation.
While her body was found in her Melrose Street home in south Belfast last Tuesday, detectives believe the she was killed on or around 25 September.
The officer leading the investigation this afternoon announced that a 26-year-old suspect had been arrested in Dublin.
“I have just had confirmed a few moments ago, that the identified suspect has been arrested in Dublin,” Assistant Chief Constable David Beck told a press conference at PSNI headquarters in Belfast.
“There’s been significant co-operation with our colleagues in An Garda Síochána which has led to the position where I can confirm he has now been arrested.
“You’ll understand that our investigation is progressing at pace and we are still working to establish the exact circumstances of Mary’s death.”
Mr Beck outlined the chronology of the PSNI’s interactions with Mary Ward prior to her murder.
“We received a call from the victim on 4 September, we responded to that call within minutes, we spoke to the victim, and we recorded an interaction with the victim,” he said.
“On the basis of that interaction, we followed that up with an arrest of a suspect. That suspect was taken to custody and was interviewed in respect of those issues.
“What followed is the issue that concerns us in terms of the organisational response and, in essence, that risk assessment and decisions that were made thereafter in respect of how we dealt with that person.
“So that’s why we have made that open and transparent referral to the ombudsman (NI Police Ombudsman), and we will await their review of that situation and their considerations in respect of that.”
He added: “We had a victim who reported an issue to us. We engaged with that victim on that date and on a number of occasions following that, so we want to ensure we learn from those engagements and our considerations around how we protected that victim.”
He said when officers found Ms Ward’s body at her home in Belfast they had been calling there in regard to a matter unrelated to her reported assault at the start of September.
“We dealt with Mary on 4 September,” he said.
“We had a phone call from Mary on 10 September. Officers called in an attempt to speak with Mary on 24 September and we spoke to her again on the phone on 25 September.
“Officers attended totally unconnected to that incident, but following up on another unrelated matter on 1 October, and that’s when we observed a female crouched over against the upstairs front window of that house and located Mary deceased, unfortunately, within the property.
“We initiated an investigation into the unexplained and suspicious death. That investigation was led by detectives. That was a complex investigation, that involved scene examination, detailed forensics, post-mortem, which got us to the point where we were in a position to confirm that this was a murder on 4 October.”
This latest murder comes at a time when the police and politicians at Stormont have introduced policies aimed at making combating violence against women and girls a priority.
That was in response to the fact that more than 30 women and girls have been murdered in Northern Ireland during the past five years.
“I am appalled that there has been another murder of a woman in Northern Ireland,” Mr Beck said.
“Mary is the fourth woman to be murdered in Northern Ireland in just six weeks. This is simply unacceptable and too many women are losing their lives at the hands of men.”
The suspect in this case was arrested by detectives connected to the Garda National Bureau of Investigation.
Gardaí have said the man arrested is being detained at a garda station in Dublin and that they will continue to work closely with PSNI detectives on the investigation.
