A life-saving scheme to trace abducted children across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight is getting backing from Newsquest’s This is Hampshire website.

The website permanently carries information about the Child Rescue Alert scheme.

And a Child Rescue Alert button will flash on all Hampshire’s newspaper sites to indicate an alert is in progress when they get the call from police. The site will then carry details of the missing child.

The Child Rescue Alert scheme will also interrupt television and radio programmes with newsflashes if a child is snatched and considered to be at risk of serious harm or death.

Hampshire police became only the third force in the country to adopt the scheme, which has saved the lives of dozens of children in America.

Sussex police was the first British force to introduce it Child Rescue Alert in November 2002, followed by Surrey police.

Det Insp Alison Scott, leading Hampshire police’s project, said the scheme had been credited with recovering 124 children across 47 states in the US since it was originated there.

She said: “The first few hours after a child goes missing are crucial and the real benefit of this scheme is that it alerts members of the public to the abduction quickly so that they can help look for the child.”

And welcoming the move, she added: “We know many, many people use the Internet, so the more we can reach the better.”

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