Police left in tears as missing Cleo rescued
AUSTRALIAN police have rescued a four-year-old girl whose disappearance from her family’s camping tent on the country’s remote west coast more than two weeks ago horrified the nation.
Officials wept with relief after seeing body camera video of a police officer scooping up the girl, Cleo Smith, and hearing her say: “My name is Cleo.”
A 36-year-old local man was arrested after a late-night raid at the house in the coastal town of Carnarvon, which followed a tip to police on Tuesday. The girl was reunited with her mother Ellie Smith and stepfather Jake Gliddon soon after her rescue.
“Our family is whole again,” the mother said on social media.
Western Australia state police commissioner Chris Dawson said the girl is “as well as you can expect”, adding: “This has been an ordeal. I won’t go into any more details, other than to say we’re so thankful she’s alive.”
Mr Dawson said “dogged, methodical police work” led to the girl being found.
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison reacted from the United Arab Emirates on his way home from the Cop26 climate summit in Scotland, thanking police for finding Cleo and supporting her family.
“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. The fact that that nightmare has come to an end and our worst fears were not realised is just a huge relief, a moment for great joy,” Mr Morrison told reporters.
“This particular case, obviously, has captured the hearts of Australians as we felt such terrible sorrow for the family,” he added.
Cleo’s family lives in Carnarvon, a community of 5,000 people, and the girl had disappeared with her sleeping bag on the second day of a family camping trip at Blowholes Campground, 47 miles north of Carnarvon, on October 16.
A massive land and sea search was initially mounted in the sparsely populated region on the assumption that she had wandered from the tent. But more evidence began to support the theory that she had been abducted.
A vehicle was reported speeding away from the area in the early hours of the morning. A zip on a flap of the tent compartment where Cleo and her sister were sleeping was too high for the girl to have reached.
The state government had offered a one million Australian dollar (£545,000) reward for information five days after her disappearance, but Mr Blanch said the money was not expected to be claimed.