Scientists join search for missing schoolgirl's body
Forensic scientists today joined a new police search for the body of a missing schoolgirl in the North.
They examined land near Castlederg, Co Tyrone, not far from where Arlene Arkinson, 15, disappeared more than 11 years ago.
The land off the Drumquin Road has been searched before and the forensic experts from Queen’s University in Belfast are now carrying out their own investigation.
The area is just three miles outside the town where Arlene was last seen in the company of child killer and paedophile Robert Howard, 61, who was last year cleared of murdering the schoolgirl.
Howard is serving a life sentence for the murder of another young girl, Hannah Williams, from Deptford, south London, whose body was found at a cement works in Kent, England.
Arlene’s sister Kathleen Arkinson looked on as police sealed off about six acres of land which were marked out for examination.
She said she was relieved a new search was underway but revealed that relations between herself and the police were at an all-time low.
Ms Arkinson said: “They have stopped speaking to us because it’s quite evident they have lost interest in trying to find the body of my sister.
“We blame them for the delay but we will never give up trying to find her and they have a responsibility to this family to make sure they locate the body. They want us to get a death certificate which would effectively close the door on any further searches, but we have told them we will never do that.
“The way they have treated this family has been a disgrace.”
Arlene would have been 27 on April 28 this year – a birthday she shared with Howard.
The child abuser, with a history of sex attacks dating back to the 1960s, drove Arlene and friends across the border to a disco in Co Donegal on the night she disappeared.
He was the last person to see her alive, but was found not guilty of her murder at Belfast Crown Court last June after his past convictions were not disclosed to the trial jury.
Extensive searches on both sides of the Irish border have so far failed to locate any trace of the schoolgirl.
