Hotline for UK girls 'abductor'

Two major lines of inquiry have turned out to be blind alleys

SOHAM, England -- The detective leading the hunt for missing British schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells has set up a telephone hotline for an abductor to call him in person.

Detective Superintendent David Beck set a deadline of midnight Thursday for the kidnapper to ring on Jessica's mobile phone to hold a "one-to-one."

The two girls were last seen in their hometown Soham, in Cambridgeshire, eastern England on August 4 wearing identical Manchester United football shirts.

Police have left a message on Jessica's phone giving instructions about how to get in touch with Beck and telling the kidnapper to use Jessica's phone.

Beck said: "It is giving these people, if they are more than one, an opportunity to have a one-to-one direct link contact with me."

Beck was speaking as two major lines of inquiry in the hunt for the two 10-year-old girls turned out to be blind alleys.

He said the hunt for a green car where a man was seen struggling with two girls had been scaled down.

A front seat passenger in the taxi whose driver reported seeing the struggle had made a mobile phone call as he got into the cab, Beck said.

More than 340 police officers are involved in the search

The call was traced and found to have been made at 6.01 p.m., contradicting the driver's insistences that he saw the man at 7:00 p.m.

Holly and Jessica were seen several times in Soham town centre after 6:00 p.m.,which suggests that they were not the children in the car.

"That line of inquiry is now a lower priority," Beck said.

But the families of the girls were clinging to "a glimmer of hope" after fears that their daughters' graves had been found proved unfounded.

A night of dread ended just after dawn when police said the twin mounds of "disturbed earth" discovered on a wooded hill were not graves, adding later that they were probably badger sets.

Beck told the UK's Press Association: "People keep saying, `Why do you still think they are alive?'

"There are two or three reasons -- I have a legal and indeed a moral obligation under the Human Rights Act Article Two of the Human Convention, a positive obligation to save and protect life.

"In absence of any evidence to show they are not alive I have to assume that they are."

He said his only evidence they were not alive was statistical, based on previous abductions, and added: "I can't accept statistics, records are there to be broken.

"I have to have that belief because the families have that belief.

"The second reason and the main reason is the real desire that we all get to bring these children back alive. I can't lose that hope ... I, David Beck, still believe these girls are alive."

The case of the missing girls has shocked Britain. Several newspapers have offered rewards totalling more than £1 million ($1.5 million) for any information leading to their safe return. (Full story)