CCTV footage may show missing girl before abduction

The missing teenager Amanda Dowler may have been captured on a surveillance camera talking to the driver of a car just moments before her suspected abduction.

The new pictures, released yesterday, show a lone figure standing next to the parked dark saloon for about a minute just a few metres from where the girl was last seen alive.

In what police are hoping is a breakthrough in the six-month-old case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has managed to remove sun glare from pictures taken by a CCTV camera. Surrey Police received the new evidence from the United States on Sunday.

Amanda, known as Milly and who was 13 when she is presumed to have been abducted, was last seen 50 metres from Walton-on-Thames railway station in Surrey at 4.08pm on 21 March as she was returning home from school.

The cleaned-up CCTV photographs, taken from a revolving camera on top of the Bird's Eye-Walls building, were filmed at 4.15pm.

Detectives are baffled about the seven-minutes difference in the sightings which may suggest that Milly had been waiting for a lift, or it could mean that the driver had nothing to do with the case and this is another false lead.

The officer in charge of the investigation said yesterday that he was "50 per cent" sure that the lone figure is Milly.

Detective Chief Superintendent Craig Denholm, of Surrey Police, said: "If it is her this is massively significant, but that's the key question – is it her? If it is Milly there is a mystery as to what she was doing in those seven minutes."

He said the likeliest scenario was that she was the victim of a "chance abductor".

As well as appealing for the driver of the dark saloon to come forward, Det Ch Supt Denholm said he would like to speak to the driver of a white Mercedes which was travelling behind the suspect vehicle. As the saloon stopped the Mercedes, believed to be an old 190 or 300 series, swerved to go round it. Detectives believe around 10 other cars may have gone by while the saloon, which could be a Honda Prelude or a Vauxhall Vectra, was stopped.

The CCTV footage appears to be the best chance of a breakthrough in a case where detectives admit they have no suspects, no body, no witnesses and no crime scene.

Milly was last seen by a school friend walking up Station Avenue in the direction of her home. She had previously stopped off at a café at the station and telephoned her father on a mobile phone to tell him she was on her way back.

Police recovered film from a surveillance camera that was pointed towards the road but the pictures were obscured by the glare of the sun.

Extensive work by FBI experts at their headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, were able to remove much of the glare to reveal the lone figure standing next to the car which had pulled up close to the entrance of the station car park and was parked on a yellow line.

The figure which may be Milly is next to the car for at least 42 seconds – the time it took the revolving camera to make one revolution. When it swept past on its second revolution – after 84 seconds – the figure and car were gone.

Det Chief Supt Denholm said after analysing Milly's mobile phone and computer usage, it was unlikely Milly had arranged to meet someone at the spot. "If she hung around for seven minutes to wait for someone how an earth did she arrange to meet somebody," he said.

The Dowler inquiry has become one of the country's biggest missing persons investigations. The police have no leads despite three arrests, 350 searches and extensive inquiries into known and suspected paedophiles living near the suspected abduction.