Old tip about missing

New information in the case of missing French teen Eloi Rolland is being investigated by police, 10 months after initial reports were allegedly made.

Rolland has been missing since March 2020 and was last seen heading from his Birkenhead, Auckland, home towards Piha on March 7. Cellphone data put his last known whereabouts in the vicinity of Piha Rd and Scenic Drive at 9.18am, police said at the time. However, following a Stuff investigation – The missing people of Piha – a woman has come forward saying she and her partner saw Rolland some 13 kilometres from that point in the heart of the coastal township.

That report was verified to Stuff by several locals who saw the same thing and the woman said the information was passed on to police, twice, in the days and weeks following Rolland’s disappearance. It is only now being followed up.

‘‘I live local and have done for some time,’’ the woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said. ‘‘On the day [Rolland] was last seen, we saw him riding an Uber [JUMP] bike out to Piha along the Piha Rd in the morning.

‘‘Those Uber bikes stick out like a sore thumb – you just don’t see them out this far.’’

At the time she thought little of it, other than it was strange for someone to be riding that bike out at Piha in jeans on such a hot day. The following day, she spotted an Uber bike parked up on the corner junction of Piha, Seaview and Pendrell roads. The next day, March 9, it was gone.

A few days later, the woman and some friends discussed how they had all seen a young man matching the description on the Uber bike. A former police employee, she passed the information on to authorities but never heard anything back, she