Police have confirmed that no charges have been brought against any of three men who were arrested when they were discovered in the company of a 15-year-old girl from Bristol, after a nationwide police appeal amid fears she had been abducted.
The case of the missing teenager became national news back in the spring of 2022, when Avon and Somerset police escalated a local missing persons appeal to a national appeal relating to a case of child abduction, over the course of nearly a month.
The girl in the case, who Bristol Live are not naming now, was aged 15 and in foster care at the time. She was first reported missing in mid April 2022, and police issued a public appeal for help to find her. Eight days later, the police reported she had been found. But four days later, police launched a second appeal to find her, after she went missing again.
A week later, on May 4, 2022, police renewed their public appeal, saying they feared she was in the company of a man. After another week, on Wednesday, May 11, police escalated the appeal from a local missing persons appeal to an urgent national child abduction alert, held a media conference in Southmead, saying they urgently needed to find her.
At the time, a Det Insp told national media she could have been taken anywhere in the country. “We are no longer investigating her disappearance as a missing person case but as a child abduction,” the police chief said at the time. “When she has previously gone missing she has been found in the company of adult men and it is mainly due to this history that we believe she is likely to currently be with someone.
“She is a child in foster care, no one has permission to keep her from her carers. She is vulnerable and at risk of being taken advantage of. We’re really concerned about her safety and have a dedicated team working extremely hard to locate her,” she added.
The police issued CCTV of her last known sighting – from near a shop in Southmead. They described the circumstances of her disappearance ‘deeply worrying for us; her family and her carers.’
Within a couple of days, police said the girl had been found at an address in Bristol and in the company of three adult men. Those three were arrested on suspicion of child abduction, but have never been named by police.
From then, Avon and Somerset police made no more public statements about the case. The three men were never charged with any offences, and in October that year, Bristol Live revealed that two of the three men had been released without charge and no further action would be taken against them, while a third remained ‘under investigation’.
Now, Avon and Somerset police have confirmed to Bristol Live that any investigation into the third man was dropped by police and prosecutors as there was insufficient evidence to support a prosecution in the case.
“The man has been released without charge or any further action and, following a thorough investigation, there were no further lines of enquiry to progress,” a spokesperson for Avon and Somerset police said.
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