Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
AMELIA: SIX HELD
Hopes of finding missing backpacker fade as dad disputes official claims
SIX men have been arrested by police probing the disappearance of a British backpacker in Cambodia.
Amelia Bambridge, 21, disappeared last Wednesday after visiting Police Beach, a nightspot popular with tourists on the island of Koh Rong.
Nearly 200 army, navy, police and volunteers scoured the island yesterday but one officer revealed: “We are looking for a body now.”
The six people held, some of whom work in local bars and hotels, have been taken to police headquarters in the neighbouring coastal province of Sihanoukville.
Koh Rong governor Noun Bunthol claimed that police received a note from some Western visitors saying the men had, in the past, acted badly towards foreign tourists, especially females.
Deputy police chief Nop Panha said: “They are being questioned. We are not drawing any conclusions yet.” Amelia’s distraught family are in Cambodia. Her sister Sharon Schultes posted on Facebook: “Where are you Amelia we miss you dearly? Please find our Amelia.”
Amelia’s dad Phil Bambridge, who is helping with the search, spoke out after carefully reviewing CCTV footage from the night she vanished.
Contradicting claims from Cambodian officials that Amelia drowned following a beach party, Mr Bambridge said he is convinced she was taken into the jungle.
He said: “We were getting conflicting times of when she got there.
“I don’t think that she’s in the sea, I think she’s inland somewhere.
“I think someone has taken her. I don’t think she’s had an accident. If she’d had an accident, she would have been found.” Amelia’s mum Linda Schultes, 52, has also travelled to Cambodia from their home in Worthing, West Sussex, along with her brother Harry.
AMELIA’S WORRIED DAD