19-year-old Gaia went missing 11 days ago and clothes belonging to the teenager were found on Thursday in a field south of the Dorset town Swanage near cliffs.

Today hundreds of volunteers turned out to help the police investigation which had spread along the coast and countryside. 

Miss Pope’s father Richard Sutherland thanked those who had gathered at Durlaston Country Park to look for his daughter who suffers from severe epilepsy.

He said: "I just want to say a massive thank you for coming out. It is very heart warming and the support gives us a lot of hope."

The Facebook group Find Gaia had organised the two searches with helpers gathering at the country park, near the main beach and to the north of the town.

More than 50 people from the emergency services in Dorset also continue the search.

PC Simon Colvin, neighbourhood officer for Swanage, told the volunteers: "The community has done an amazing job of coming together to help.

"Some of you are local and some of you have travelled a long way. I understand someone has travelled over 300 miles to come and help today.

"People's help really is appreciated."

Richard Drax, the Conservative MP for South Dorset said: "I spoke to the family at length yesterday and they are very grateful and very touched by the effort everyone has been making.

"What we have to do now is find the girl and find her as fast as we can, and hope alive.

"It's awful. I have got two daughters and not to know what has happened to your daughter must be ghastly.

"They are being incredibly stoical under the circumstances.

"I think you just go numb as a family when something like this happens, you pull together and do the best you can to try and find her and they have been very active in that.

"They have been amazing, coordinating all sorts of things, Facebook searches etc and they are still doing that today and they will go on until they find her."

Asked if Miss Pope was still alive, Mr Drax said: "I can't be confident of that but I don't think we can say it is a murder investigation because there is no body, so at the moment it is a search for a missing person.

"We hope that they find her alive, we hope that she's holed up somewhere, we just don't know.

"It's unlike her, from what the family have told me, as she always comes home and she's been missing for 11 days, so it is not a good sign.

"We've got to find her now and find her fast. I have two daughters myself and as I wrote to Natasha Pope, I can only imagine the pain and horror of this, not knowing, it is ghastly.

"What me must do is find this girl and I would implore anyone who has any information at all to call the police because the sooner we find her the better."

Three people - a 71-year-old woman, a 19-year-old man and a 49-year-old man - have been arrested and released under investigation.

Gaia’s mother, Natasha, said in a Facebook post she had not given up hope of finding her daughter alive.

She wrote: "I believe in this community and I believe miracles can happen.

"I am holding onto hope, along with Gaia's sisters and the whole family who are my strength.

"Please hold on with us. My eternal thanks to everyone who is out there searching for my little girl.

"Please come out over the weekend and do what you can. Every one of you makes a difference."

Previously, Mr Sutherland said he feared his daughter's epilepsy may have played a part in her disappearance as she had been warned by doctors that she was at risk of sudden death from the condition.

Miss Pope has not been seen since about 4pm on November 7 in Manor Gardens, Swanage.

An hour earlier she was captured on CCTV buying an ice cream inside St Michael's Garage in the town, having been driven there by a relative.

She was wearing a red checked shirt with white buttons, grey and white woven leggings and white trainers. The black jacket she had on was recovered from an address in Manor Gardens.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Dorset Police at dorset.police.uk, via email 101@dorset.pnn.police.uk or by calling 101, quoting incident number 16:301. Alternatively contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or via crimestoppers-uk.org.