Search widens for Scarborough hiker still missing on moors after three weeks

Fears are growing over the welfare of Mr Chapman, 38, who was last seen on November 27 and is believed to have gone on a hiking trip in the moors.

A search was launched on December 2 after a member of the public reported seeing his red VW Polo parked in Harwood Dale three days earlier, but police and mountain rescue teams have so far found no sign of him.

Mr Chapman’s brother this weekend criticised North Yorkshire Police for initially assuming he had killed himself and for only belatedly widening the area of their search.

The force, which says its bid to find the recycling centre worker has been “relentless”, today issued a fresh appeal for information.

Inspector Mike Fenton of North Yorkshire Police said between 70 and 80 people from his force and local mountain rescue teams have been carrying out the search.

He told The Yorkshire Post that the search radius was initially widened to 1.6 kilometres, an area including dense woodland, open moor and some areas of water, before widening again to 3.2 kilometres.

Police dogs and divers from an underwater search team have been deployed, while a National Police Air Service helicopter has flown over the area, but to no avail.

Mr Fenton said it was not known which walk he had gone on in the national park, as his car was parked in a position where he could walked in a number of different directions.

He said: “From the position of his car we are assuming he is somewhere on the moors but we are not ruling anything out so we are doing house-to-house enquiries and enquiries with his friends to see if they can shed any light on it.

“Every indication is that he intended going out walking, but no-one has actually heard him say he was going out walking, or which walk he was going to do.

“All the searches have been done under the leadership of a police search advisor. We will have a meeting with the advisor to see what they think. Once we have done the areas they suggest we will sit down and see where we go from there.

“There will be a time that comes when we will have to scale it back. There have been 70/80 people involved so far. Even if we scale the search back we are still doing background inquiries.”

This weekend, Mr Chapman’s brother Steve criticised the way police has carried out its search, claiming the force has not tried to generate enough publicity about the disappearance or sought information from local farmers and residents.

He said officers assumed “straight away” the case was a suicide and are only now looking at other possibilities.

Steve Chapman said today: “The family is pleased that on Monday 14th December, 15 days after Kieran’s disappearance, the police began searching the trails and moors beyond the initial limited three-day search of 3,000 square metres from Kieran’s car.

“We are obviously hoping for good news but the frustrating and irrational nine-day delay between the first search which stood down on Saturday 5th December and the present search has undermined both our confidence in the police and the prospect that there will be a positive outcome.

“However, we would like to go on record as thanking those officers currently out on the moors and the helicopter crews.

Responding to the family’s criticism, Mr Fenton said: “I can see where they are coming from but to search that area properly takes a long time because you have to put officers in there who can get into those inaccessible areas. And you have to be reasonably sure they have been searched correctly. To do a cursory search of these areas is not a problem but to do a proper search is more difficult is extremely labour-intensive.

“We can only go back to the national guidance about where to find that person.

“The police search advisor makes a number of assumptions about why someone might have gone missing but the plan would always be to start from where his car was.

“Regardless of what the assumption was, it makes no difference to where the search starts from. Since then we have been working on the assumption of ill and injured but the initial parameters of the search remain the same.”

Anyone with information is urged to contact the police as a matter of urgency on 101.