Stepfather charged with murder of missing Zoe

The stepfather of the missing schoolgirl Zoe Evans was last night charged with her murder. Wiltshire police said that Private Miles Evans, 23, would appear before West Wiltshire Magistrates at Trowbridge today. Detectives arrested Pte Evans at lunchtime yesterday and detained him at an undisclosed police station.

Zoe, 9, has been missing for more than three weeks after disappearing from the family home on an Army base at Warminster, Wiltshire. Zoe's mother, Paula, 28, reported her daughter missing after finding the little girl's bed empty on the morning of 11 January.

Despite considerable publicity and extensive searches by police, soldiers and civilians, and the use of a helicopter fitted with infra-red equipment, Zoe has not been found. Detectives began to fear she had been killed when they found bloodstained items of her clothing on a railway embankment. Matthew Brace