Alice Gross detectives call off search in London park

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/26/alice-gross-detectives-call-off-search-elthorne-park

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A search of a park has failed to shed any light on the disappearance of 14-year-old Alice Gross, police have said.

Officers looking for Alice, who went missing four weeks ago after she left home in Hanwell, west London, had identified Elthorne Park, near where she was last seen, as an “area of interest” and began searching it overnight on Thursday.

But shortly after midday on Friday a police spokesman said officers had called off the investigation of the area. “As part of the ongoing search operation last night we identified an area in Elthorne park,” he said. “The area was identified by the search team as disturbed earth and police dogs were deployed. A full assessment has now been carried out, which has determined this area is not of relevance to the investigation into Alice’s disappearance.”

Search teams had cordoned off a number of areas in the park, guarded by uniformed officers. A white tent was erected in one rectangular section of grass measuring about 50 x 70 metres and extending a short distance down a bank. Officers in diving gear were also seen searching a boggy overgrown area next to the river.

Alice was last seen on CCTV at 4.26pm on 28 August, walking under a bridge heading towards Hanwell, having left her home at about 1pm. Speaking at the family home on Thursday, her mother, Rosalind Hodgkiss, spoke about the impact of Alice’s disappearance. “This has obviously been a very distressing time for the whole family and every morning as Alice’s disappearance grows longer and longer brings new agony, new anguish,” she said. “We’re coping as best we can and we’re trying to keep hopeful.”

On Thursday, marking four weeks since Alice went missing, police staged a reconstruction of her last known movements,with an actor retracing her steps after she left home and walked the canal towpath along Brentford Lock.

Scotland Yard has said the hunt for Alice is the biggest search operation since the 7/7 London bombings in 2005.

Police are seeking Arnis Zalkalns, who has a previous conviction for murdering his wife, as a suspect. Detectives believe he came across the teenager shortly before the last known sighting of her and may have fled abroad.

Zalkalns, 41, was jailed in Latvia in 1998 and served an eight-year prison sentence. In 2009, he was arrested over an alleged indecent assault on a teenage girl in Ealing, west London, but the case was dropped because the alleged victim declined to make a statement.