Alex Reid: No action taken after arrest

Alex Reid: No action taken after arrest
Alex Reid: No action taken after arrest (Image credit: PA)

Alex Reid has been released without charge by police after he was arrested over a disturbance involving his girlfriend, former Big Brother star Chantelle Houghton. The 37-year-old was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and using violence to gain entry to the couple's home in Brentwood, Essex, in the early hours of yesterday. Chantelle, 29, who has an 11-week-old daughter named Dolly with Alex, recently told OK! magazine that her relationship with the former cage fighter has been "strained" and has spoken of how their plans to marry were put on hold. A statement on Alex's website, posted yesterday, said: "In the early hours of this morning Alex was arrested at the address he shares with his partner, Chantelle Houghton, after she called police following a disturbance. "The reasons for Alex's arrest have been widely publicised and in some cases inaccurate and based on conjecture. "Alex considers this a private matter and therefore is not prepared to comment on it save to say that he assisted police with their inquiries and following that, the police have taken no further action." The couple had been together for six months when they got engaged last October. Alex, former husband of model Katie Price and himself a winner of Celebrity Big Brother in 2010, is reported to have briefly moved out of the couple's home in recent weeks. Essex Police said yesterday that they were contacted just before 1.30am with reports of a disturbance at a property in Spital Lane, Brentwood. A spokeswoman today confirmed that no action would be taken against Alex.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.