Police extend their search for missing Daniel

Dressed in a blue T-shirt and tracksuit trousers, seven-year-old Daniel Entwistle strolls down the aisle of his local corner shop on an errand for his parents. Shortly after the CCTV images were recorded on Saturday afternoon, he disappeared.

After buying a feeding bottle for his two-year-old brother, Daniel walked 50 yards to his seaside home in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, and left again on his red and white BMX-style bike at around 5pm. There was a possible sighting of Daniel near the river Yare at 5.30pm, where his bicycle was later found. Divers have trawled the fast-flowing river, but there was no sign of him.

Yesterday police released the images taken from Blencowe's store in the hope that they would jog somebody's memory and provide fresh information on the boy.

Detectives were investigating reports of a further sighting of Daniel close to his home at around 8pm, when his parents reported him missing.

Daniel had spent Saturday afternoon playing in a park with friends. At about 5pm his mother, Paula, 30, who suffers from epilepsy, went to bed because she felt unwell. She woke at 7.15pm and called the police at 8pm. She said: "He was playing in the park in the afternoon and he used to go in and out the house. Everybody goes in each other's houses. There was nothing out the ordinary."

Police have extended their search to a four-mile radius from the boy's home in Copperfield Avenue, enlisting the help of the National Crime Faculty, which specialises in high-profile search operations, and the Ministry of Defence.

Detective Superintendent Julian Gregory, is leading the hunt, which involves 100 police officers and other agencies. He urged householders and businesses in the town to check their premises in case Daniel had been injured while playing and he appealed to anyone with CCTV footage to save the tapes.

He said: "We are very concerned about Daniel's welfare. At the moment we have no clear idea about what happened to him. As far as we are aware he went home from the shop. Then he went out to play on his bike and there are sightings of him later in the evening. We are not closing our minds to anything."

Justine Burgess, 30, whose three children attend the same school as Daniel, the Greenacre School, said: "I don't let my seven-year-old daughter out of the house after 6pm. Since this all happened I won't let her out on her own."