A SECURITY officer and his brother holidaying in Florida joined hundreds of guests to search for a missing four-year-old.

Les Walford was staying in Orlando with his wife Maureen, his brother Fred and their family, at The Quality Inn.

They first heard that little Keeva Cadimla from Ireland was missing when they returned from a night out and found their hotel swarming with police.

Keeva was staying with her family at the Inn and had disappeared at 6pm that night.

Back home in Mellor, Les - who works at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph in Blackburn - told how he and Fred asked the police officer co-ordinating the search if there was anything they could do to help.

He said: "All the guests were helping out. My brother and I searched for about three hours even looking in all the skips at the back of the hotel, restaurants and bars. "The police stopped us at about 3am. The sheriff said they were very grateful but they had police dogs out and we were upsetting the scent for them.

"The police were absolutely marvellous. Everybody was saying how fantastic they were."

Guests heard at lunchtime that day that Keeva had been found safely 15 miles away. Police were investigating how she came to be there.

Les added: "We had all been so worried and were very relieved to hear she was safe."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.