Hopes that missing Matt Green is in New Zealand have been dashed.

His parents Pauline and Jim Green were invited to Medway police station last Wednesday to view stills from CCTV footage taken from the Vodafone shop at the Sylvia Park shopping centre in Auckland.

A man who resembled the 29-year-old was spotted at the store at around 11.30am on June 7 by former Sittingbourne resident Darren Driver.

The 32-year-old reported the sighting after he checked his emails and saw one from a friend who’d sent him a missing poster of Matthew after hearing about a sighting of him in the area.

The couple were filled with hope it was their son who went missing from the family home in Rock Road, Sittingbourne, three years ago.

Mrs Green, 59, said: “As soon as they showed us the CCTV I said ‘It’s not him’.

“It was the shape of his head and his nose – everything about him. Obviously I am really disappointed, because I thought deep down that because there had been three sightings the odds were with us.”

The first sighting of the self-employed roofer was made at the same shopping centre by Hannah Bellew, a former town resident, at around 10.30am on May 18.

The third was by Chris Kentsley outside a toilet block close to Howick beach, east Auckland, at around 4.30pm on June 12.

The location is about 8km from the shopping mall.

Mrs Green said: “Sighting three, I don’t know about that one because of the description, but I don’t think the man Chris saw is the one in the CCTV stills we looked at either.

“The one we’re holding on to is Hannah’s sighting but the security people at the shopping centre say they have been through four hours of footage and they can’t seem to find him.

“We are back to the waiting game to see what materialises.

“At the moment I’m at the middle of my roller coaster, I’ve not hit the bottom yet.”

Kent Police says it is following up all lines of inquiry with the authorities in New Zealand.