Soham residents are urged: Look at your neighbours' behaviour

Police urged the residents of Soham last night to turn detective in the search for the schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

At a packed public meeting, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Hebb said former cases of abduction suggested that the solution to the disappearance was most likely to be found in the Cambridgeshire town itself. He said every house in Soham might have to be searched, and a member of the audience said the townspeople would welcome such a move.

Det Ch Insp Hebb said: "Look at the behaviour of your friends, relatives, neighbours, anything. Think about how they are behaving. Are they doing anything differently?"

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 was 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. Talk to each other and think about the neighbour on your right-hand side, the neighbour on your left-hand side.

"Are they a Darby and Joan couple you have known for years, or a family you can vouch for? Look at all your neighbours in your mind and ask yourselves, 'Can I vouch for them, am I quite certain they have nothing to do with this abduction?'," he said.

Det Ch Insp Hebb gave the meeting an outline of the hunt so far and stressed that police had many lines of inquiry.

Several people asked if there was anything more the town could do to help. Many parents brought children to the meeting, which packed the secondary school with some 350 people, and many asked about sex offenders in the area.

Police refused to discuss individuals within the town, saying they did not have the resources to cope with public order problems, like those seen in many towns during the Sarah Payne investigation.

One woman asked how safe children were in Soham. Inspector Simon Causer said: "These events are incredibly rare. My advice to you would be to look at where they are and where they go ... there are only a handful of these cases across the country, but I can't stand here and say to you that they are 100 per cent safe."