Police officers searching for Shannon Matthews revealed today that an unconfirmed but “significant” sighting of the missing schoolgirl had been made close to her home the morning after she disappeared.

The witness claimed to be 100 per cent certain that he saw the nine-year-old within a few streets of her home in Dewsbury yesterday morning, around 18 hours after she went missing on her way home from school.

Friends of the quiet, shy child told police that Shannon had been talking about running away on the day she went missing.

The last confirmed sighting was at 3.10pm on Tuesday afternoon as she walked away from Westmoor Junior School alone. She did not appear to be following her normal route home.

The alarm was raised by Karen Matthews, 32, when her daughter, who usually came back with friends or family, had not returned by 7.30pm.

Detective Superintendent Andy Brennan, of West Yorkshire Police, said: “It was a witness who said he saw Shannon at that time. It was an adult who was convinced it was Shannon.”

The man claims to have seen her between 9.15am and 9.30am yesterday, a few streets away from the family home in Moorside Road, Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

Mr Brennan confirmed that Shannon had been discussing running away from home but it is unknown if she had made plans to meet anyone or had been talking to any strangers.

“My teams have spoken with a number of her friends and certainly on Monday, Tuesday this week she had suggested that she may not have wanted to go home,” he said.

“However that doesn’t help me in relation to the vulnerability of a nine-year-old who has gone missing for 48 hours. I wouldn’t describe her as streetwise at all. I couldn’t be more concerned - this is a nine-year-old who has never been missing before. I would expect we would have found her by now.”

More than 200 police officers have joined scores of friends and family in searching Dewsbury, which has seen sub-zero temperatures for the past two nights.

The police team searched fields and wasteland, conducted house-to-house inquiries and was said to be carrying out checks on convicted child sex offenders.

Neil Hyett, Shannon’s uncle, said: “We’re extremely worried. Her brother, who is 11, has gone missing in the past, but not Shannon. It was absolutely freezing. Minus 6. All the adults were cold, so how cold would she be?”

Mr Hyett said that Shannon lived with her mother, her stepfather, Craig Meehan, 22, a supermarket worker, two brothers aged 11 and five, and a two-year-old sister. Police described their lengthy enquiries at the family home as routine.

Shannon is described as white, 4ft 2in and of slim build, with shoulder-length, medium-brown hair, often tied in a ponytail. She has blue eyes and freckles. She was last seen wearing a blue school jumper, black trousers and a black coat with a fur-lined hood.

Chloe West, 8, a classmate of the missing girl, said that she normally walked home with Shannon. “She got off the bus with the rest of us but Shannon went a different way. We don’t know why, but we didn’t ask where she was going. Someone said they thought they saw her crying earlier in the day.”

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