Police search for Tyrrell in bushland near paedophile's home
Police are scouring bushland around Herons Creek close to where convicted paedophile Frank Abbott was living at the time William Tyrrell disappeared.
William, 3, vanished from his foster grandmother's front yard in Kendall on the mid-north coast in 2014.
Police continue to search for William Tyrrell
Despite a dedicated police strike force, a then-unprecedented $1 million reward and coronial inquiry no trace of him has ever been found and no one charged over his disappearance and presumed death.
On Monday, Strike Force Rosann officers, riot police and the SES returned to bushland in Herons Creek with the search expected to continue until Thursday.
The Herald has been told that the search, near the property where Abbott was living at the time of William's disappearance, is a continuation of the coroner's order to search the bushland for any clues and not as a result of new information.
Frank Abbott, who is a person of interest in the investigation, in 2014.Credit:AAP
Abbott was living in a caravan near the saw mill in the tiny town when William disappeared. Adjacent bushland was initially searched under a coroner's order in August last year.
Before the COVID-19 shutdown, the inquest heard that Abbott had claimed that police were searching for the missing boy in the wrong spot as they searched washing machine repairman Bill Spedding's property.
Last year, Mr Spedding was found to have been at a school assembly at the time William went missing.
The coronavirus interruption has meant that Abbott, who has been observing the inquest's proceedings from a cell in a Hunter Valley prison where he is serving a lengthy sentence for child sexual abuse, has not yet had the opportunity to give evidence before Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame.
The inquest is set to resume in October.