'Police refuse to help us find missing Elizabeth'

THE FAMILY of a missing Chinese student have accused the Metropolitan Police of failing to take her disappearance seriously, nearly six weeks after she was last seen in Ealing.

The family of 19-year-old Elizabeth Chau say police should have started searching earlier, instead of assuming that she had run away from home and would turn up after a few days.

They also claim police may have misread vital clues about Elizabeth's state of mind because she is Chinese and detectives don't understand the subtle cultural differences which influence her family life. Elizabeth's sister, Bic Chau, 22, said: "For the first crucial days, they refused to do anything at all and now they make us feel like troublemakers for pushing them to look for my sister. They treat us like she has only run away, but we are certain that something else has happened." Law and business student Elizabeth was last seen by friends on 16 April when she left Thames Valley University to go home. She was filmed on security cameras outside Ealing police station at about 6.15pm, but there have been no positive sightings since. Friends say she enjoyed going out and having fun, but had an inherent sense of responsibility. They say the police theory that she ran away is offensive and the suggestion is out of character. Jean Heaven, head of Drayton Manor Sixth Form in Hanwell where Elizabeth took her A-levels last year, said: "There are some teenagers who would go away for a while without telling their parents, but Elizabeth Chau wasn't that type of girl." A team at Ealing police station was assigned to the case. But Elizabeth's close friends say they were not interviewed at all, and none was contacted in the first few days of the investigation. From an isolated entry in her diary almost a year ago, the family says detectives concluded she had run away, and because she was over 18, there was no pressure on them to act. Bic Chau says a detective told her the case was low priority and the onus was on Bic herself to prove a crime had been committed if she wanted police to investigate further. She said: "They kept insisting we should sit and wait. They didn't check the CCTV footage for days and they didn't keep in touch with us. My brother Minh and I both took time off work but there wasn't anything we could do but worry. "It's impossible to think Elizabeth ran away. She didn't take any clothes, money or her passport. Her bank account hasn't been touched." Bic and Minh Chau have now launched an independent search. They say they were advised that if they cannot find another sighting or piece of evidence, police will be forced to take the case more seriously. They have put up posters and distributed leaflets with the freephone number of a local campaign group, as well as the police number. Last week they organised a search of local parks and wasteland. Two hundred friends, neighbours and Thames Valley students helped. A bigger search is planned and the family hopes their MP will get involved. "If the police won't search for Elizabeth, we will have to," said Bic. "I'm hopeful that we'll be able to persuade them to step up the investigation." The family has been assisted by The Monitoring Group, a legal advice service specialising in race-related cases and police harassment. The group helped Bic Chau to lodge a formal complaint with the Police Complaints Authority about the police investigation, and has provided the family with a lawyer to handle the complaint. Javish Patel, a lawyer for The Monitoring Group, does not think police were racist in this case, but says significant cultural differences were overlooked. A Scotland Yard spokesman denied claims that police had not done what they could. "We want to reiterate our appeal for any information - any leads will be followed up," he said. "If somebody says they saw somebody of that description we will follow that up." The family declined a police offer of help with a search of Ealing Common last weekend, he added. Anyone with information should contact Ealing police on 0181 246 9425 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.

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