Man questioned over missing women

Appeal for missing teenager Elizabeth Chau on local taxis

by BBC News Online's Peter Gould

Detectives investigating the disappearance of two young women from Ealing in West London are to question a 55-year-old man.

The man, who has not been named, was arrested over the attempted murder of a woman at a house in the London suburb on 31st October this year.

A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police said that officers would take the opportunity to speak to him about the missing women, as they had vanished from an area "geographically very close" to the incident.

It is being stressed that at present there is nothing to link the man with the disappearance of the two women.

Last seen on CCTV

The first to go missing was 19-year-old Elizabeth Chau, a student in law and business at Thames Valley University.

Elizabeth Chau:never returned home

She was last seen on 16 April 1999, walking home through the centre of Ealing. Her image was captured by a closed circuit TV camera outside the police station.

She left behind all her clothes and belongings, and her bank account has not been touched since her disappearance.

Her sister Bic-Hang Chau told BBC News Online this week that the family feared that Elizabeth had been abducted.

They have renewed their appeal to the public for information, and over the Christmas period two London taxis are carrying pictures of Elizabeth in an effort to jog memories.

Other disappearances

Lola Shenkoya was the second young woman to disappear. A 27-year-old graduate in computer technology, she was last seen getting off a bus in the centre of Ealing on 3 January.

Like Elizabeth Chau, she was said to have been a home-loving young woman with no problems. She too left behind her all her possessions and no money has been removed from her bank account.

And police say that like Elizabeth, she simply "disappeared off the face of the earth".

Lola Shenkoya: last seen getting off a bus

Because of the similarities between the two cases, officers have been considering the possibility they could both have been abducted, perhaps by the same person.

Since they went missing two other young women have disappeared, from the Hammersmith area of West London.

A 20-year-old student from Poland, Iwona Kaminska, vanished on 13th July, and 26-year-old Sinead Healey has not been seen since 18th October.

Scotland Yard has not linked either of these cases with those of the two missing women in Ealing.

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Anyone with information can contact the police incident room on 0208 358 1777 or the National Missing Persons Helpline on Freefone 0500 700 700.