Caroline was murdered on a school trip

Detectives were alerted earlier this year when a Swiss tourist said she met a French man resembling the photofit of the suspect in a youth hostel in the west of Ireland.

But they have not shown his photofit around all of the hostels in the area of Clifden, County Galway, or to many local people.

Caroline, a 13-year-old from Cornwall, was raped and strangled as she slept in a shared dormitory during the school trip to Pleine Fougeres, Brittany, in July 1996.

'It's staggering'

Superintendent Michael Curly said: "This person is not even a suspect at this particular time, so we have got to be extremely careful about who we show them to."

But John Dickinson responded: "That fills me with almost disbelief that something as simple as showing a photofit and a photograph around the hostels in that part of Ireland hasn't been done. It's staggering."

The photofit of a suspect in the inquiry

Mr Dickinson is in Roscoff, Brittany, to mark the second anniversary of his daughter's death.

Despite major police inquiries nobody has ever been charged with Caroline's murder.

DNA tests from men in the village where she died failed to uncover any new clues.

A photofit which was released drew an encouraging response from the public and further information linked Caroline's murder to an attack in a nearby hostel on the same night.

John Dickinson tells BBC News 24 he will never give up his campaign to find Caroline's killer

But still no breakthrough appears imminent.

The Dickinson family's direct appeals to the French media have kept the investigation in the public eye - this is his ninth trip to France - and the appointment of a new judge to the case earlier this year has given them fresh hope.

Earlier on Wednesday Mr Dickinson's barrister, Herve Rouzaude le Boeuf, visited the French local police's "Caroline Room" with him and pronounced it "impressive".

Caroline's father refuses to give up campaigning until the murderer was found.

He said: "People say, 'have you had time to grieve'. Of course I have grieved a lot but because the killer is still at large, I can't relax until he's caught and it doesn't matter how long that will take."