Online search for missing children

Police hope visitors to the site will help trace children

A website devoted to finding missing children has been launched, with police praising it as a powerful new tool which would help them track down the hundreds of youngsters who disappear from home every year.

The site displays pictures of the children and gives details of when and where they were last seen, in the hope that visitors to the website will recognise them and notify police.

Cases on the site - www.missingkids.co.uk - include runaways and children who are thought to have been abducted.

The idea has been pioneered by the Metropolitan and Hertfordshire police forces, after senior London officer Jim Reynolds saw a similar site in the USA.

Mr Reynolds, former head of Scotland Yard's paedophile unit, told the BBC: "One of the best investigative tools when police are trying to find a missing child is a good quality photograph.

The scheme is due to be rolled out across England and Wales

"Until now when police get hold of a good photograph they have difficulties in circulation - now a missing child's picture can be circulated immediately."

"But the fundamental techniques of knocking on doors and interviewing witnesses will always continue to be followed in these sort of cases," he added.

Police say there is the potential to use photographs which have been enhanced to show how the children might look in the years after their disappearance.

Expansion

Visitors will also be able to print off display posters and to view the site in different languages.

The photographs of 14 children appear on the site at present but the scheme is being rolled out to police forces across England and Wales who will add the details of local missing young people.

The idea for the site originated from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, a non-profit-making organisation in the US.

The UK project is being funded by Computer Associates International Inc.