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POLICE are focusing on “sites of interest” in the search for the remains of missing Coatbridge schoolgirl Moira Anderson after a new witness came forward.

A member of the public has approached police with information relating to Moira, 11, who disappeared 53 years ago, which was passed on to the cold case unit investigating her death.

Detective Chief Superintendent Pat Campbell said: “The ongoing focus is the recovery of Moira’s remains and a number of areas remain significant and of interest to this investigation.

“We are carrying out viability assessments around such sites based on new witness testimony, which is then overlaid with the information and data we already hold, to examine the potential for any further search or excavation.

“This is a dynamic process and over recent weeks we have received additional information from the public which we are now considering, again focusing on sites of interest within the Coatbridge area.

“This is at an early stage and there is no intention to carry out any further search at this time.

“However, we would appeal for anyone with any additional information about Moira, and who the investigation team has not already interviewed, to contact their local police office or call 101.

“This is a live investigation and Police Scotland will continue to pursue all lines of inquiry to recover the remains of Moira and to bring closure to her family.”

Moira vanished after setting out to run an errand and was last seen on a bus being driven by convicted paedophile Alexander Gartshore, who was Moira Anderson Foundation founder Sandra Brown’s father.

It has been eight years since Moira’s disappearance was upgraded from a missing person case to a murder investigation and, in 2014, the Crown Office took the unprecedented step of announcing that Gartshore would have been indicted for Moira’s murder were he still alive.

Moira’s body has never been found, despite searches being carried out in various parts of Monklands as recently as 2017, including exhuming a burial plot in Coatbridge’s Old Monkland Cemetery and combing parts of the Monkland Canal.