AN ARTIST has been arrested on the suspicion of manslaughter after two people died when an inflatable tourist attraction was lifted into the air by a gust of wind.
Claire Furmedge, 38, a mother-of-two, who was born and grew up in Bacup, died when the huge attraction - half the size of a football field - broke free from its moorings in July.
Elizabeth Collings, 68, from the North East, also died.
Police said officers investigating the incident in Riverside Park, County Durham, met Maurice Agis, 74, at Charing Cross police station in London by appointment and he was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.
Mr Agis is the artist behind the inflatable sculpture, called Dreamspace.
Mrs Furmedge, a radiographer at a Tyneside Hospital, had been inside with daughters, Jessica, eight and Emily, six, when it lifted into the air.
A former pupil at Thorn Primary School and Fearns High School, Mrs Furmedge worked at Airtours, Haslingden, before doing a radiography degree.
She and husband Gary, also 38, moved to the North East in 1994.
An inquest into her deaths has been opened and adjourned.
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