A POLICE officer has told jurors of his “surprise” at initially being refused when he requested a helicopter to help find missing Gaia Pope.

PC Jon Kuspert, giving evidence at 19-year-old Ms Pope’s inquest, told the hearing he first came into contact with the teen on October 20, 2017, when he took her to hospital.

The officer also took a call from Ms Pope on November 2 when she had received indecent photos online and arranged for her to speak to an officer at Wareham Police Station.

Bournemouth Echo:

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He said the teen was “definitely a vulnerable adult who would need someone to care for her” and felt the police station would be a more suitable location for the meeting.

His “expectation” was the female officer at the station would facilitate the meeting, and after returning from leave on November 7, he said he was surprised nothing had been done.

When Ms Pope ran from the home address in the afternoon of November 7, PC Kuspert searched Swanage for her and even asked two members of the public for help.

However, at 7.43pm when he requested National Police Air Service (NPAS) assistance to use a heat source to help find Ms Pope, he was refused.

The officer said: “Initially it was refused. I was told by the radio operator, the decision needs to be by the chief inspector, I imagine the radio operator would have asked them and they would have refused.

“I could understand the reason being because the helicopter would have liked a specific location and the weather was bad, but I felt if Gaia was running around they would have been able to find her.”

Bournemouth Echo:

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A short while after 8pm, PC Kuspert was checking the Studland ferry for Ms Pope when he did see the helicopter and it did lift to help the search.

PC Kuspert, who searched Swanage, Ms Pope’s address and Talia Pope’s address, as well as the road to Studland and asked officers to search a “boyfriend’s” address in Bournemouth, said he covered “as much ground as he could” and couldn’t think of more he could have done on the day she went missing.

Ms Pope was found 11 days later, on November 18, 2017, in undergrowth on a clifftop near Dancing Ledge.

On Wednesday morning, jurors were taken to the site where her clothes were found on November 16, a sock was found on November 17 and her body was eventually found on November 18.

The inquest continues.