Cleo Smith: Australian police offer £540,000 reward for information about missing girl

Tammy Hughes22 October 2021

Police in Western Australia have offered a A£1million dollar (£540,000) reward for information about a missing four-year-old girl who is thought to have been abducted from a campsite.

Cleo Smith was last seen in her family’s tent at about 1.30am on Saturday at the remote Blowholes Shacks campsite in coastal town Macleod, around 900km (559 miles) north of Perth.

She was sharing a tent with her mother, her mother’s partner and her baby sister.

When the family woke in at 6.30am the tent’s zip was undone and Cleo was missing, along with her sleeping bag.

Witnesses at the campsite have reported hearing the skidding of tyres at around 3am.

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WESTERN AUSTRALIAN POLICE FORCE/

Acting WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch said more than 100 police officers and emergency services personnel had been deployed to search for the girl.

“Someone in the community knows what happened to Cleo, someone has the knowledge that can help and now there are a million reasons why you need to come forward,” he said.

It emerged on Wednesday, around 20 sex offenders are known to police around the campground area where Cleo disappeared.

Cleo’s mother Ellie Smith said she did not believe her daughter wandered off.

“She would never leave us, she would never leave the tent,” she told the ABC.

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WESTERN AUSTRALIAN POLICE FORCE/

“[S]he was wearing a jumpsuit. She can’t go to the toilet without my help unzipping it. She would come and get me.”

The region’s premier Mark McGowan said in a Facebook post: “It’s absolutely heartbreaking.”

“We are all praying for a positive outcome,” he added

Police has earlier released a picture of a sleeping bag and a pink pyjama one-piece that Cleo was last seen in.

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