Danielle police seek commuters' help

A home video of Danielle has been issued

Police are to approach drivers and train commuters in a renewed bid to find the missing Essex schoolgirl Danielle Jones.

They hope to jog the memory of road and rail users in Danielle's home village of East Tilbury, who may have seen her on the day she disappeared exactly two weeks ago.

The new tactic follows a police search of open land close to Danielle's home at the weekend, which was supported by hundreds of volunteers.

It has since emerged that someone saw a teenager matching Danielle's description getting into a blue van on the day she went missing and that the vehicle could have been spotted in her village twice before.

Land searches continued throughout the weekend

Police will stop commuters in East Tilbury on Monday morning to hand out leaflets containing a photograph of Danielle, details of her school uniform and her mobile phone.

Danielle was last seen by two school friends at about 0800BST on 18 June on Coronation Avenue, near her home, on her way to catch the school bus.

During the course of the police investigation, a neighbour of the Jones family told officers she had seen a blue Transit-type van in East Tilbury on two previous occasions.

Mother-of-three Joanne Nyland, 32, said that on both occasions teenagers, mainly girls, were talking to the male driver.

She said: "The blue Transit van was an R or an N registration and had writing on it and the man driving it had dark hair.

Suspicions

"It had some writing on the outside for some kind of interior decorating.

"We were voting in February for the local elections and my mum took me in the car because I was on crutches.

"We were parked next to it. We did not pull away when we left as I did not like the look of it. As we reversed out I wrote the number plate down."

Ms Nyland said the van was parked in Coronation Avenue, and the driver was talking to three teenagers, aged about 16, from St Clere's School in Stanford le Hope.

"Two of the girls walked away, leaving one sitting in the van."

Danielle is a pupil at St Clere's School, but Ms Nyland said she was not among the three.

Police have issued photos of Danielle in a public appeal

Ms Nyland said the second time she saw the van was at the end of the May Bank Holiday.

"It was near the shop in Coronation Avenue, with a lot of young kids around it, mainly girls. I was convinced the driver was a drug dealer. When I saw it again my suspicions were raised."

She added that she was sure she would be able to identify the van if she saw it again.

Ms Nyland said she had lost the piece of paper from a notepad on which she had written the registration number.

But police plan to check for indentations on the notepad left by the original note she made.

Danielle - who lives with her parents and younger brother - is 5ft 7in, slim, with blue eyes and long blonde hair and a brace on her teeth.