Police ‘very close’ to finding missing Sian as volunteer searchers are stood down

The announcement was made after the detailed search of dense woodland was narrowed by the use of mobile phone technology which had pinpointed areas of interest for the police.

Specialist search teams were examining specific “hotspots” within the 4,500-acre Savernake Forest, near Marlborough, Wiltshire, yesterday after the development, which led officers to stand down volunteers who were preparing to assist police in the second day of searching.

Around 400 members of the public, including friends and family of the missing office administrator, had joined police on Tuesday in the painstaking search of the woodland, around 15 miles from where Miss O’Callaghan was last seen on Saturday.

Det Supt Steve Fulcher, leading the inquiry, said: “We have made good progress in narrowing the search using a number of technologies and techniques and I believe we are getting very close to identifying Sian’s whereabouts.

“Searches will be limited by available daylight but we will be further assisted by specialist dog teams who arrive tomorrow and resume the search effort as soon as daylight permits.”

Police had revealed earlier this week that phone masts put Miss O’Callaghan’s mobile phone somewhere in Savernake Forest just 34 minutes after she left Suju nightclub in Swindon at 2.52am on Saturday.

It was a journey that could only have been made by car, police said.

Miss O’Callaghan was caught on closed circuit TV leaving the nightclub, in Swindon’s Old Town area, after an evening out with girl friends. The 22-year-old lived in a flat just half-a-mile away with her boyfriend Kevin Reape, 25, but never made it home.

An anonymous donor is offering a £20,000 reward for information leading directly to Miss O’Callaghan being found.