SENIOR police officers from Kent will meet with their German counterparts next week to discuss the nine-month long inquiry into the disappearance of Thanet woman Louise Kerton.

Exhaustive inquiries have been held in Kent, particularly in Broadstairs where the 24-year-old trainee nurse lived.

The Kerton family are urging the German police to upgrade the search into a murder hunt and want Kent police to record Louise’s disappearance as an unlawful killing.

Louise was staying with her fiancé’s mother near Euskirchen, 60km from Aachen in Germany, when she disappeared on July 31. She was due to catch a train to Ostende in Belgium but never arrived.

Assistant Chief Constable Mike Bowron, senior investigating officer, Det Chief Insp Brian Roberts, and Insp David Lawson, who is heading the Thanet inquiry, will meet with their German counterparts, a representative from the British Consulate, and the German state prosecution department at Aachen on Thursday (April 25).

Insp Lawson said: “The German police are conducting this as a missing person inquiry. They are carrying their investigation out properly, professionally and thoroughly. They have indicated that a person is entitled to go off and adopt a new lifestyle if they want.

“Kent police are very concerned for Louise’s health and safety and we will be sharing our feelings with our senior counterparts. It is for the German police to proceed as they wish, but our meeting will be a chance for us to say exactly where our inquiries had led and to discuss a way forward.

“Locally, we have run inquiries since last July and a team of officers has followed more than 200 lines of inquiry. We have a vast number of statements building a picture of Louise. I feel I have lived with her through this inquiry and have a very good idea from the information gathered and the link that has built up with her family.

“We know she had not done as well as she hoped in her nursing studies and had gone to Germany to spend time with her fiancé’s family. It was her intention to return to the UK to resolve her situation and to pick up her life. We have no information to the contrary.”