Police chief appeals for safe return of schoolgirls
The police chief leading the hunt for missing 10 year olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman was tonight making a direct television appeal to the girls’ abductor to let them go free.
Superintendent David Beck was making the appeal after the schoolgirls’ anguished parents begged for their safe return in an interview on the ITV1 Tonight With Trevor McDonald programme.
Looking directly into the television camera, Mr Beck told the suspected kidnapper to “examine your conscience” and to leave the girls “somewhere safe where they can be found”.
He said: “Now is the time to stand tall and look at yourself in the mirror. Things are out of control and I don’t think you’ve planned for it to get this way.
“You will be justifying to yourself, all the reasons and the excuses for what you’ve done.
“But look deep into the core of your soul and you’ll know that what you’ve done is wrong and you will be feeling guilty and fearful for what the future may hold.
“This is serious. I can’t pretend it isn’t. But don’t let it get worse. There is a way out – there is a way you can still emerge from this with credit.
“I am asking you to work with me to make that happen. Leave the girls somewhere – somewhere safe where they can be found.
“Examine your conscience and you will know that it is right to do that. Stop this now.”
Police believe the girls were snatched as they walked in their home town of Soham, Cambridgeshire, on the night of Sunday July 4 and are still alive but being kept against their will.
:: ITV1’s Tonight With Trevor McDonald begins at 8pm tonight.
