Parents’ anxious wait as site searched

THE parents of missing schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were last night facing an anguished wait as police began the grim task of searching two small patches of disturbed earth.

Police officers at Warren Hill, near Newmarket, Suffolk, said preliminary searches of the woodland area had proved inconclusive and that forensic officers planned to work through the night.

A jogger, who heard screaming in the area on the night the girls went missing, reported the discovery of disturbed earth less than 10 miles from where the 10-year-olds disappeared.

Cambridgeshire police spokes- woman Kim Perks said: “We acknowledge this is a very harrowing time for the families and we will be proceeding as quickly as we can to ascertain the situation. There has to be a very scientific approach. The families are being kept fully up to date with what is going on.”

The wooded area has been sealed off, less than 10 miles from where the 10-year-old girls disappeared. Police officers were stationed along the route every hundred yards preventing anyone from crossing the boundary.

The woodland is on a hill next to the racecourse overlooking Newmarket.

Detective Superintendent David Beck said: “An initial assessment of the site leads us to believe earth has recently been disturbed therefore we need to make a fuller investigation of the area.

“The jogger also told police, on Sunday, August 4, between 10.40pm and 11.10pm as he was walking his dog in the area of Warren Hill, he reported what he described as teenagers screaming.

“This witness did report this to police on Tuesday, August 6, and was spoken to on the same day by officers and a report was created in relation to that to form part of the inquiry.”

Police have set up two cordons around the site, the largest of which covers several hundred square metres.

Earlier yesterday, police defended their hunt for the missing schoolgirls after it emerged that a potentially key witness contacted them four days before he was interviewed.

The man, a taxi driver, told police he saw a man apparently struggling with two children in a car near the spot the 10-year-olds went missing in Soham, nine days ago.