POLICE in Kent, Germany and Belgium have pledged to do everything possible to find missing trainee nurse Louise Kerton. Officers and representatives from forces in three countries and a representative from Interpol met at Thanet police headquarters in Margate for a day-long appraisal of information about the 24-year-old from Broadstairs who went missing last summer.

A Kent police spokeswoman said: “We have asked German representatives to arrange a meeting between the county’s Assistant Chief Constable and a senior German officer of equal rank to seek new ways to progress the enquiry and we eagerly await a response.

“We have already been in touch with Mr Kerton and we will be discussing today’s meeting in greater depth with him.

“All three forces have pledged a commitment to taking every action possible under the laws of the respective countries to discover the whereabouts of Louise. First and foremost it is extremely important to all involved that we recognise the distress and grief which the disappearance of Louise Kerton has caused to her family.

“We all share the major concerns voiced by the Kerton family over the past few months. In Kent we have already followed up 98 lines of enquiry and taken formal statements from 20 witnesses. Similar action has been taken in Germany and Belgium.

“The German police have already made applications to the German public prosecution service to treat Louise’s disappearance as a criminal investigation. To date these applications have failed in spite of all the information passed to them from Kent police.”

The Kerton family want the German police to upgrade the search into a murder hunt and have demanded to Kent police police that Louise’s disappearance be recorded as an unlawful killing. She was staying with her fiance’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.