POLICE investigating the death of a six-year-old girl who was left dying in the street after she was hit by a car today arrested two people.

Schoolgirl Leonie Shaw was fatally injured as she was struck by a Rover 827si and flung on to the opposite carriageway as she crossed the road to buy sweets a few hundred yards from her home in Bishop Auckland, Co Durham.

Police had taken the unusual step of naming a man and woman believed to have been in the car at the time of the incident on Saturday night.

A Durham police spokesman said a couple were arrested shortly after 10am today in the Middlesbrough area by officers from Cleveland police acting on information from a member of the public.

The two were taken to Middlesbrough police station and they will be transferred to Bishop Auckland where they were expected to be questioned this afternoon.