Give our girls back, plead parents
The anguished parents of missing schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman today begged for their safe return, amid growing fears they could have been snatched by someone they knew.
The nightmare possibility that the girls’ captor was known to them or even to their families has clearly haunted the families.
Police believe the 10-year-olds were snatched as they walked in their home town of Soham, Cambs, last Sunday night and are still alive but being kept against their will.
Detectives said they were not ruling out the possibility that they had been abducted by someone who had groomed them - perhaps after meeting them over the internet.
Officers are also looking further afield and are investigating whether the girls could have been taken abroad and have set up alerts at all ports.
Chief Inspector Andy Hebb told the Independent: “It is a possibility they were taken abroad. There is nothing to suggest they have been taken out of the country but it is a possibility and there has been an all-ports warning.”
In an interview on Tonight with Trevor McDonald, Jessica’s mother Sharon Chapman made a heart-rending plea to their captor to return the girls.
“Just give them back. Drop them off somewhere that is safe... It’s never too late... I just want them back,” she told the ITV programme to be screened tonight.
Detective Chief Inspector Andy Hebb, a senior officer in the inquiry, said police were exploring all potential lines of inquiry.
Evidence from Holly’s computer has been scrutinised and detectives have said there is no sign the girls were emailing or contacting anyone via chatrooms last Sunday, although they have not ruled out earlier contacts.
The girls used Holly’s computer from 5.11pm until 5.35pm and were seen around the town centre between 5.45pm and 7.20pm, when they were spotted outside an Italian restaurant.
They left Holly’s home, where the Wells were having a barbecue, some time after 5.35pm.
Police last night organised stop-checks on the roads in and out of Soham between 5pm and 7pm, asking motorists if they were in the area at the same time last week and if they remembered anything.
An earlier reconstruction triggered more than 500 calls and the inquiry has had more than 7,500 calls since it began.
Extra officers have been drafted in, with more than 300 now working on the hunt, and the radius of the physical searches has been widened to within three miles of the market town.
Detectives are particularly keen to pinpoint the spot where the girls were abducted, as that would give the clearest indication as to whether there was a struggle.
They were spotted several times in the town centre before they disappeared but police have received no reports of screams or a struggle, suggesting they could have initially been willing to go with their abductor or abductors.
:: The two men arrested in Cambridgeshire on Friday night and Saturday morning after failing to co-operate with the investigation were both released without charge today.
