Discovery dashes hopes and raises questions

Police with a digger work in an area of trees behind the house from which Aisling Symes went missing. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Neighbours were last night asking how a child missing for a week and feared taken by kidnappers could be found only metres from where she disappeared.

"They reckon they searched everything twice, but she's right under their noses," one Henderson man said.

He believed more questions would be asked of police.

Deborah Gregory, of nearby Maurice Borich Place, wanted to know why it had taken police so long to find Aisling when she was so close.

The neighbourhood had been really quiet over the past week, and the police presence had been incredible, she said.

About 100 grief-stricken people gathered on Pomaria Rd last night, Many had helped in the search, placed brochures on their car windscreens or done whatever they could to find Aisling Symes.

A neighbour, whose property overlooks the area where police were digging yesterday, said he had been hoping the little girl's body would not be found.

"I don't even want to know what they are doing. It's too sad and it is far too close to home. How the little girl's body arrived where it did will be on everybody's mind."

Some stood with candles last night, others stood wearing pyjamas. They were a wide range of ages, from children to the elderly.

They were there for the same sad reason - to pay their respects to a child they never knew, but who touched their hearts as if she was one of their own.

Police hunting for Aisling were last week confident she was not in the area where the body was found last night.

Two days after she disappeared, the officer in charge of the investigation, Inspector Gary Davey, said police were confident she was not in the area and so were looking at a possible abduction, "given her age and the possibility of how far she would move under her own steam".

He also said it was unlikely she had been swept out to sea, and police believed she could be with a stranger.

Police were "keeping an open mind", he said, but were increasingly convinced Aisling had been kidnapped.

"We have searched and not found her, which makes it more likely we are looking at someone having picked up Aisling."