Amanda ground search resumes

Police are searching for the schoolgirl's belongings

Specialist officers are resuming their search for the missing Surrey schoolgirl Amanda Dowler.

Ground searches for the 13-year-old, who is also known as Milly, had been paused for around 48 hours as senior detectives assessed the information already gathered.

The news comes as actor Jonathan Pryce, star of the musical My Fair Lady, made an appeal on Monday evening for the missing teenager's safe return.

My Fair Lady star 'feels affinity' with Milly's family

The teenager had long wanted to see the West End production and was due to attend Monday's performance with her family before she vanished 11 days ago.

Mr Pryce said: "I'm a father, my daughter is 12, she's a little younger than Milly and when I saw her photograph it just made me think of my daughter."

Vanished

Amanda vanished as she walked to her home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.

The specialist teams are concentrating on parts of the route that Amanda is thought to have taken while walking home from Walton-on-Thames train station on Thursday, 25 March.

They will be working in Rydens Road, Walton Park and the area up to Hersham railway station.

Milly's sister wrote a letter pleading for her return

They are looking, in particular, for any of the schoolgirl's property.

She was carrying a beige rucksack, a white plastic purse with a heart in the top right hand corner, a pencil case and a Nokia 3210 silver mobile phone with a blue back with the name "Milly" on it.

Twenty extra officers were put on the case at the weekend to cope with the public response generated by recent appeals for information.

Superintendent Alan Sharp of Surrey Police said: "We have over 100 officers on this inquiry and we are very pleased with the results of appeals we gave out recently."

He reiterated that police believed it was unlikely that Amanda had been snatched.

The evidence suggested she had gone off with someone she knew, he said.

Actor's plea

Mr Sharp said: "There's been nothing from potential witnesses to suggest any confirmation that someone has been struggling or that someone has got into a car or otherwise in the area that she disappeared.

"That tends to rule out and diminish that line of inquiry, as opposed to that if she did get into a car she went with someone she knew."

During the 11 days of the investigation police have examined CCTV footage from across the area and carried out house-to-house inquiries.

There has been no sign of Amanda for 11 days

They have also carried out a thorough search of the Dowlers' home with the consent of Amanda's parents Sally and Bob.

The couple have said they agreed to the search but did not feel comfortable with it.

On Monday night Jonathan Pryce called for Milly's return.

The actor, who plays Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal in London's Drury Lane, said: "It is quite extraordinary, from when I first heard she had gone missing I felt a strong and strange affinity to the situation."

'Lovely sister'

Pryce said he could only too easily imagine the anguish her parents must feel.

"But I also felt that on her return, when and if and I hope she does return, the sense of joy and certainly the sense of forgiveness they'll feel when she comes back."

His call came a day after Amanda's 16-year-old sister Gemma made an appeal to anyone who may have abducted the missing schoolgirl.

Gemma wrote: "If someone has taken Milly, please return her safely to us as I am missing her very much and I couldn't wish for a lovelier sister."