As fellow computer science students at the University of Reading gathered in a gesture of solidarity for their missing colleague Daniel Williams, police have kept up the search.
It is now five days since the 19-year-old was last seen leaving the Students Union after a night out at the 3Sixty bar, right at the heart of the Whiteknights campus. He had been attending the weekly Wednesday club night and had left sometime after midnight.
Daniel did not return to his student home in the Redlands area of Reading and his concerned housemates raised the alarm.
Thames Valley Police said from the beginning that his disappearance was out of character for someone who was enjoying university life.
But despite extensive searches of the university’s campus, carried out by volunteers from Berkshire Lowland Search and Rescue as well as police officers and a helicopter, the student’s whereabouts remain a mystery.
Today, officers conducted house-to-house enquiries, open countryside searches, and checking buildings. And a police marine unit has carried out search activity in a lake at the Whiteknights Campus at the University of Reading.
Daniel is white, 6ft tall with a slim build and short light brown hair and blue eyes.
He was last seen wearing black or blue jeans, a black hooded top and black shoes. He was also wearing a black T-shirt underneath with a distinctive white motif on the front.
Superintendent Stan Gilmour, Local Policing Area Commander for Reading, said: “We are continuing our efforts to attempt to locate Daniel as we remain extremely concerned for his welfare, as are his family. We are supporting them and keeping them updated of any developments in our missing person investigation.
“We would like to thank the members of the community who have reported possible sightings of Daniel to police. Unfortunately none of the sightings have been positively identified as being Daniel.
“Therefore significant resources are being deployed to our searches which are ongoing in the area of the university and further afield.
“We continue to ask anyone who believes they have seen Daniel to contact police immediately.”
Yesterday, at a press conference, Thames Valley Police Superintendent Jim Weems said: “We remain open-minded as to the circumstances behind Daniel’s disappearance, but naturally, as the search enters its [now fifth] day, our concern for him is growing.
“A lot of police officers on site in last few days looking for Daniel, also many, many more officers that you can’t see for our investigation task behind the scenes.
“We started focusing on the last areas we knew where Daniel had been, so the Student Union, the vicinity of the area where we are at the moment and the wider area.
“Reading University campus is a large area so although we’ve been searching this area to try and find Daniel, naturally as we go through the enquiry, we’re working further afield obviously to find Daniel.”
In addition to today’s gathering in 3Sixty, the students have been putting up posters in the area around the university campus and delivering leaflets door-to-door.
But while people are keen to help the search to find the second year student from Surrey, police would prefer members of the public not to take part in the search.
Anyone with information about Daniel’s whereabouts is asked to call Thames Valley Police on 101 and quote incident number 1307 (31/1).
