The father of a 49-year-old arrested over Gaia Pope’s disappearance said last night his son ‘could not stand’ the missing teenager but was ‘110 per cent innocent’.
Carpenter Paul Elsey is being held as detectives revealed that clothes similar to those the missing 19-year-old was wearing had been found near a 70ft clifftop.
His father Greg Elsey claims his son, the uncle of Gaia’s schoolfriend, was being wrongly targeted by police and said he was away working at the time she disappeared. Greg’s grandson, the friend of Gaia’s, had previously been arrested.
Shortly before his son’s arrest, Greg Elsey told the Daily Mail: ‘Paul could not stand Gaia. He wanted nothing to do with her. He said her family were bad news.’
Defiant: Greg Elsey, pictured right with grandson Nathan, said his 49-year-old son did not like Gaia but is 110 per cent innocent
But following the arrest, Mr Elsey said his son barely knew Gaia and would not hurt her.
Last night he said: ‘He’s protested his innocence 110 per cent and I have 110 per cent belief that he will be released when they find out he has done nothing.’
Police yesterday cordoned off a section of the South West coast path around 200 yards inland from the cliff edge, between the beauty spots of Anvil Point and Dancing Ledge.
‘Suffered a trauma’: Gaia Pope was last seen on November 7 after her father said she became upset following an interaction on Facebook
It is around an hour’s walk from where Gaia, who suffers from epilepsy, was last seen in Swanage, Dorset, and two miles south of her family home in the village of Langton Matravers. The owner of the clothes has not yet been identified, but the discovery by a walker was significant enough that Gaia’s family were informed.
Gaia was wearing grey and white woven leggings, white trainers and a red checked shirt with white buttons when she vanished
Less than two hours after announcing the discovery of the clothes yesterday, Dorset Police confirmed they had made a third arrest over Gaia’s disappearance.
The man was identified by his family as Paul Elsey, a carpenter who specialises in church restorations. He is the uncle of Nathan Elsey, 19, who was arrested on Tuesday along with his grandmother Rosemary Dinch. They were later released.
Paul Elsey shares a first-floor flat with his mother, Mrs Dinch, 71, in Swanage, where Gaia was last seen. CCTV footage of Gaia on November 7 shows her running down the road towards Paul Elsey’s flat at 3.40pm.
She is said to have banged on his door in a distressed state and Mrs Dinch claimed she then stripped to her bra.
The pensioner then says she convinced Gaia to put her clothes back on, except for a black jacket which was later recovered from the address.
Detectives had been trying to track Paul Elsey down since he went missing on Tuesday afternoon, a week after Gaia disappeared.
They seized his VW Golf and obtained a warrant to search his father’s £460,000 bungalow in Romsey, Hampshire, on Tuesday.
According to his father, Paul Elsey claims he was in Weymouth, Dorset, on the day Gaia disappeared, carrying out work on a property he owns there.
Investigation: Swanage was where Gaia was last seen with clothes found 200yards from 70ft cliffs popular with hikers
Ongoing search: Forensic teams combed films for evidence on Thursday after finding clothes believed to belong to Gaia
Last night Greg Elsey said: ‘It’s disgusting how the police have performed. I wanted to make sure Paul had got legal representation before he was taken away. The only reason Paul has not been around is because he felt he would be victimised and so decided to stay out of the way.’
The flats belonging to Paul Elsey, his mother and Nathan are still being combed over by forensic officers and teams of officers and volunteers have been searching woodland and ponds around Swanage.
Gaia’s family remain hopeful she is still alive.
Yesterday her father Richard Sutherland broke down in tears as he told how he just wanted to give his daughter a ‘big hug’. He said: ‘Gaia, you know we love you, you know that. We’ll get you back and we’ll have that big hug.’
He added: ‘Gaia was very upset. She suffered a trauma a couple of years ago. She was involved in a situation where some guys assaulted her. This had a really devastating effect on her.’
Anguished: The father of the missing teenager, Richard Sutherland, broke down during an interview to ITV News and said his family has been left ‘distraught’ by Gaia’s disappearance
Last movements: Above shows the last known movements of Gaia Pope. She was spotted at a petrol station near Swanage at 2.55pm buying an ice cream, having been driven there by a member of her family on November 7. She was then seen on CCTV sprinting along Morrison Road in Swanage, before being spotted banging on Rosemary Dinch’s door in Manor Gardens
Mr Sutherland said this, along with memory loss from her epilepsy, had ‘messed with her head’ and made her confused.
Gaia’s actress mother, Natasha Pope, has urged people to check garages and vans in case she is being held against her will.
Detective Superintendent Paul Kessell said searches were ongoing and police ‘would not stop until we find Gaia’, who they do not believe had left the Swanage area.
Earlier this week, Gaia’s aunt Talia Pope, 59, told MailOnline there is still ‘no evidence’ to prove she is dead and police have not found a body.
She said: ‘We are just searching until we find her. The search is continuing for my niece. It’s ongoing at the moment. It’s inconclusive. But we are just searching until we find her. We’ve got a long way to go yet’.
The only reason Paul has not been around is because he felt he would be victimised and so decided to stay out of the way
Two days before her disappearance Gaia posted a message on Instagram that said she was worried about being ‘shut up and put in a cell’ with the hashtag #sexualassault and one follower urged her to ‘run somewhere safe’.
And on the day of her disappearance, her father said she had become upset following an ‘interaction on Facebook’. Shortly after, she fled her aunt’s home, where she had been staying, and ran to Nathan Elsey’s house.
Neighbour Jack Goode, 25, said there had been reports of ‘shouting and screaming’ from Mrs Dinch’s flat on the day Gaia disappeared.
Mr Goode said: ‘The person who lives below told me they heard shouting and screaming on the day it happened.
‘It would’ve been not long before she went missing. Debbie, Nathan’s mum, went over and apologised to them disturbing them.’He added that Gaia appeared to be good friends with Elsey.
He said: ‘I saw Gaia, I think she was good friends with Nathan. I probably saw her walking to his flat with him twice a week before she disappeared. They spent a lot of time together.’
Gaia is from nearby Langton Matravers but had recently been staying with an aunt in Swanage, a few streets away from the home of Nathan Elsey.
Neighbours there said Gaia had visited Nathan’s flat two or three times a week before she disappeared, but weren’t sure if they were a couple or close friends.
A female relative of Emilie Brylak, a close friend of Nathan’s said: ‘I have heard about the arrests, I just don’t believe it.
‘He is a very quiet young man. I have known Nathan for quite a while and he is good friends with my granddaughter.
‘They go to the same college. He comes here and I take her to his house.
‘He is a very gentle young man who doesn’t go out. I just don’t believe it.’
Hundreds of volunteers as well as police officers and search teams have been involved in trying to find the teenager this week.
The coastguard and hundreds of members of the public have been searching for Gaia on cliffs, woods, nature reserves and beaches.
Her older sister Clara Pope-Sutherland, 21, told the Daily Echo on Tuesday: ‘We just want her to come home.
‘She’s a home bird. She would never do anything like this.
‘She’s just not the kind of person to go off like this – she’d always let us know what was happening.
‘That’s the most concerning thing of all.
‘We’re so worried and we just want to know she’s safe.’
The last reported sighting of Gaia was at Ms Dinch’s address in Manor Gardens on Morrison Road of Swanage.
She was said to be wearing a red checked shirt with white buttons, grey and white woven leggings and white trainers.
Comedian Russell Brand, who has more than 12 million followers on Twitter, re-tweeted a poster with information about the appeal.
Speaking about the disappearance, Gaia’s cousin Marienna Pope, described the situation as a ‘waking nightmare.’