Cab driver lied about giving lift to missing student

A taxi driver was being questioned by police last night after he lied about giving a lift to a Cambridge student who has been missing for six days.

The minicab driver claimed to have picked up Sally Geeson outside a club in the centre of Cambridge and dropped her by a pub close to her home in the Brookfields area of the city.

But yesterday, a day after he made his statement, the driverwithdrew it. He is now being interviewed by Cambridgeshire officers on suspicion of wasting police time.

As a result of the statement, police had shifted the focus of their investigation away from the city centre to the area around Ms Geeson's home.

Det Supt Garry Swain, who is heading the inquiry, said yesterday: "The withdrawal of this statement has caused us major concern."

Ms Geeson, 22, a forensic science student at Anglia Polytechnic University, had been at a New Year's Eve party with a group of about 20 students.

Her twin sister Julie told a news conference that her sister would not have got into a car with someone she did not know. "She was not a silly girl."

Police have now called in a telephone expert who worked on the Soham murder case to help them analyse text messages which Ms Geeson sent after she left a Cambridge bar.

A reported sighting of Ms Geeson on a train in Norfolk is now not a priority, though officers say they have not completely closed this line of inquiry.