DETECTIVES were last night searching the house where a teenage tennis champion stayed with his girlfriend as his parents lay shot to death at their home.

Promising student Brian Blackwell, 18, was arrested early yesterday after the discovery of the badly decomposed bodies of his parents at their family home in Sandy Lane, Melling.

Parents Brian, 72 and Jackie, 61, were found with gunshot wounds at the three bedroomed bungalow at 4.30pm on Sunday. It is believed they had been lying dead for at least three weeks.

Blackwell was arrested early yesterday morning at his girlfriend's home in Rimmer Avenue near Bowring Golf Course, in Bowring Park, Liverpool.

He was still being questioned last night. According to neighbours, Blackwell had been staying at the address, which the girl shares with her doctor mother and father, for around four weeks.

His red Toyota Celica car had been regularly parked outside.

Brian, a former Liverpool College student, is the current Under-18s North West tennis champion and was about to begin studying to become a doctor at Nottingham University.

Last night, a special service was held at St Thomas's Church in Melling for distraught friends and neighbours of the family.

Neighbour Margaret Smith, 73, said: "It is so unbelievably sad. They were a lovely family. They moved here about 16 years ago when young Brian was still a toddler.

"He really studied hard and always had his head in his books. His mother was very proud of him and said he was going to be a surgeon."

Family friend John Armitage, a farmer, said: "Brian is a very good tennis player and wants to go professional. His parents were lovely people - I'd often chat to his father." Courier Steve Parez, 44, said: "We haven't seen the Blackwells for four or five weeks.

"We began to get suspicious when their garden, which was their pride and joy, began to get overgrown."

Brian Christian, headteacher at £7,320-a-year Liverpool College in Mossley Hill, said: "We are all pretty much in the dark and in a state of shock.

"We are obviously very concerned for Brian who only left us in July and was preparing to start university.

"I did know Brian well while he was here and he was a very strong student.

"He was one of a group of students who had received straight As in his four A-levels, maths, biology, chemistry and Spanish.

"They all decided to go to Nottingham University so they could stay together - on results day, they were all jumping up and down.

"Today, I've passed on this news to his former teachers who are all stunned and absolutely sure this isn't the Brian they know.

"As well as being strong academically, he was a great team player here.

"He was the under-18s North West tennis champion and was involved in coaching and helping our younger pupils."

Mr Blackwell had been an accountant, while his wife was a buyer at department store TJ Hughes before taking over a small antiques shop in Maghull.

She was a member of St Thomas's Church and contributed poetry to the local Melling Leaflet magazine.

Police believe the couple were shot but an official cause of death will not be released until after postmortems are carried out today.

Detectives and forensic scientists were last night examining the bungalow in Melling, as well as the house that Brian Blackwell Jnr was discovered in.

A police spokeswoman added: "Inquiries are continuing. There was no weapon found at the scene."

markhookham@dailypost.co.uk