Missing girls: Phone stays silent after deadline

A midnight deadline has passed with no word from an abductor who may have taken Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

A dramatic "call me" plea was issued on TV and radio by the policeman leading the hunt for the missing 10-year-olds, Det Supt David Beck.

He urged them to ring by midnight last night, saying details of a special hotline number were in messages sent to Jessica's blue Nokia mobile phone, not seen since the best friends vanished 12 days ago.

In his appeal, which has been constantly repeated on TV and radio - every five minutes by one local station - Mr Beck said: "Work with me to stop this getting any worse than it is. You do have a way out."

Det Chief Insp Andy Hebb said: "We don't know with certainty that Holly and Jessica have been abducted and therefore are not unduly anxious about the fact that no call has been received.

"If someone is holding the girls it is possible that they don't have access to Jessica's phone and therefore could not access the message left by Mr Beck.

"We will reconsider our options later today once we have taken expert advice about how this line of inquiry may be progressed.

"Our optimism about finding Jessica and Holly alive remains as strong as it was on day one of this inquiry.

"The fact that we have not received a phone call from a possible abductor has not changed that, nor has our commitment or determination to find both girls and return them to their families."

Earlier today Mr Hebb said there were "many, many positive lines of inquiry" apart from the phone appeal. He refused to elaborate for operational reasons but emphasised that the investigation - one of the biggest of its kind ever mounted in the UK - was "most certainly not back to square one".

Police still believed the girls were alive, he added.

The parents of the Cambridgeshire schoolgirls last night made another emotional appeal through police for the safe return of their daughters.

Mr Hebb said: "Holly and Jessica, your parents still love you. They want you back safe and well."

With no sign of any breakthrough, Cambridgeshire Police disclosed details of a shake-up at the top of the inquiry team.

The force's acting deputy chief constable, Keith Hoddy, has taken overall personal control of the investigation, while Chris Stevenson, a detective chief superintendent, has been brought in to work alongside Mr Beck.

Though he is senior in rank, police insisted Mr Stevenson was not replacing Mr Beck and denied the change was in response to criticism over handling of the inquiry. They insisted it was for practical reasons given the mushrooming size of the operation.

Mr Hebb said: "This is a massive inquiry for one person to manage. Police are putting in the days, putting in the hours, without time off."

A team from the Metropolitan Police has also arrived to conduct a review of the Cambridgeshire inquiry to inject fresh ideas and spot mistakes.

Just hours before the deadline expired, detectives held a question and answer session for Soham's residents together at a community meeting.

Mr Hebb last night told the packed meeting that past cases of abduction showed that the solution to the disappearance was most likely to be found in the town of Soham itself.

"Look at the behaviour of your friends, relatives, neighbours, anything," he said.

"Think about how they are behaving. Are they doing anything differently? That's the important thing."

The meeting was then addressed by a former chief superintendent of the area, Maurice Audley, who called on residents to take a more vigilant approach to their neighbours. He said: "Soham people and Fenlanders generally aren't at all inquisitive about their neighbours, but we do like to know what's going on."

Mr Audley, who said he worked as a policeman for 36 years, said: "It has never been police policy to set neighbour against neighbour or to ask someone in the community to spy on their neighbours.

"I don't want you to do that, but I do want you to go home and talk to your wives, husbands and children, to cast your minds back to that Sunday."

Earlier, search teams widened their operations around the town of Soham, while officers extended house-to-house inquiries.

The inquiry team - now 426 strong - is sifting through 14,000 items of information received since Holly and Jessica went missing. They have followed many dud leads, including excavating two apparent graves in woodland near Newmarket, only to decide later they were badger setts.

Detectives have discounted a potential sighting of the girls in a green car after taxi driver Ian Webster admitted his dashboard clock was an hour fast.