This is the dramatic moment a British fugitive accused of raping two women he met on Tinder in Scotland was arrested while exercising on a beach on the Costa del Sol.
James Clacher, 55, was hanging upside down from a rope while honing his muscles during a gruelling strength-training routine when two plainclothes officers posing as tourists pounced on him.
Video footage showed a police officer wearing a sun hat running towards Clacher, who faked his disappearance at a Scottish loch two years ago before going on the run, as a female police officer approached him from behind.
They and two other colleagues who arrived seconds later pinned the burly Scot to the sand before handcuffing his hands behind his back and leading him off the beach.
Detectives allowed him to cover his tattooed bare chest with a T-shirt before taking him to a police station where he was fingerprinted and given a mugshot.
The arrest occurred on May 21, but detectives in Spain had not yet made any official comment or released images from the day they detained the fugitive.
Tinder rape suspect James Clacher, 55, was hanging upside down from a rope when two plainclothes officers posed as tourists.
Video footage showed a police officer wearing a sun hat running toward Clacher, while a female police officer approached him from behind.
Spain’s Civil Guard today released the first images of the high-profile arrest, revealing that Clacher’s obsession with staying fit proved to be his downfall.
Spain’s Guardia Civil today released the first images of the high-profile arrest, revealing that Clacher’s obsession with keeping fit resulted in his downfall and led to his arrest in the resort of Nerja on the Costa del Sol, east of Malaga.
The arrest took place on May 21, but detectives in Spain have yet to make any official comment or release any images from the day they detained the fugitive.
The 55-year-old man was due to stand trial on charges of attacking two women he met on Tinder.
He faced charges of raping a woman at a flat in Troon in August 2019 and carrying out another attack on a woman at a flat in Gorbals, Glasgow, in September 2020.
The gym boss was last seen in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, on May 30, 2022 and was reported missing after his clothes and Suzuki Swift car were found in Loch Long car park in Arrochar, Argyll the following day.
Revealing he had been found and held in Spain, a Police Scotland spokesperson said earlier this year: ‘A 55-year-old man was arrested under an international arrest warrant in Spain on Tuesday 21 May.
“We are in contact with partner agencies and he will be subject to extradition proceedings.”
The arrest was made by the Guardia Civil’s centralised fugitive unit UCO, which in September 2022 arrested alleged UK-born gangster Johnny Morrissey and his wife Nicola.
A police spokesman said today in his first comments on the operation to catch Clacher, appropriately named Operation Clacher: “The operation began when Britain’s National Crime Agency received an anonymous tip-off saying he might be living in Nerja and immediately contacted the Guardia Civil’s UCO unit.
The arrest was made by the centralized fugitive unit of the UCO of the Civil Guard
‘This information, together with other data about the fugitive indicating that his life was closely linked to sport, allowed the agents to track him to that town.
‘They discovered that he was well integrated into the sports community and that he was using a false identity.
Once his identity was confirmed after discreet surveillance, he was arrested while practicing calisthenics in a recreational area on Nerja beach.
‘This individual, described as dangerous by Scottish police, was accused of sexually assaulting two women he had met through a dating app.
‘His trial was suspended while the search for him began, as he had fled his country in 2022 when authorities reported his car had been found beside a lake in Scotland.
‘Police Scotland later determined that this was not an involuntary disappearance and that he had fled to avoid arrest.’
It was not immediately clear today whether Clacher is opposing extradition or has agreed to return to the UK to face trial.
He has already appeared before a judge at the National Court in Madrid, who is in charge of extraditions.
