Police search drained lake for Claudia – 13 new pix

These photographs show the latest painstaking stage of the Claudia Lawrence investigation.

The fishing lake at Sand Hutton has been drained as officers meticulously comb through the mud at the bottom.

Specially trained officers have also been scouring the undergrowth in the area, which has been cordoned off.

Police believe Ms Lawrence – who lived in the Heworth area of York and worked as a chef at the University of York – was murdered, although no body has ever been found.

She was last seen on March 18 2009. North Yorkshire Police has conducted two investigations and questioned nine people in relation to her disappearance and suspected murder, but no charges have ever been brought.

Police today confirmed that a lake had been drained as part of their investigation into Claudia’s disappearance and suspected murder.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: “Officers remain at the site and the searches that began last week are continuing.

“We expect to be at the site for a number of days.”

Officers have marked a 700-foot stretch of land near the gravel pits and dug up a single three foot deep hole.

Around 40 officers have been searched the site with sticks while divers searched the lakes.

Detective Superintendent Wayne Fox, leading the investigation, said new information has come to light since they began the Sand Hutton Gravel Pits search.

Now owned by the York and District Amalgamation of Anglers, the lakes were formed after a gravel works was shut about a century ago.

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