Inside the manhunt team which snares killers, robbers, drug dealers and a dangerous stalker

He was sitting on Aer Lingus flight EI105 from Dublin to John F Kennedy Airport, New York. It was due to depart at 10.55am on April 5 this year.

Edward John Best - who used the aliases John Komori, and John Eum - for social media profiles, thought he had got away with an horrific crime. He was just minutes away from being airborne and on his way back to the US.

But a small, dedicated, and driven team, of police officers were using their nous to find him. As passengers settled in their seats, Best was pulled off the flight.

Two days earlier, armed with a hammer, he had falsely imprisoned a woman in a house in Hyde, Tameside, for more then three hours. It was the terrifying conclusion to an ill-fated 4,000 mile journey he had made from Chicago to Manchester to confront the woman's cousin, with whom he was obsessed.

After staking out the house for days Best, 26, climbed onto wheelie bins against a rear wall, dropped into a backyard, and walked into the property through an open door. The woman he was seeking was away on holiday. By chance her cousin was there feeding her cat.

Best barricaded the house - putting furniture across the front door and locking the back one. He then rooted through the house after holding the hammer to the petrified woman's face. He took a photocopy of the birth certificate of the woman he had come to find, and her old passport.

His hostage managed to send a message to the landlord of the house urging him to call 999. Best vaulted over the back wall and ran off when help arrived. The clock then began to tick for Greater Manchester Police's Force Critical Wanted Unit - the manhunters.

The woman Best was seeking had stopped a three-year online relationship because his behaviour was becoming obsessive,