Eleanor Neale

And with that, police released a statement urging women in the area to stay extra vigilant, saying the local community should expect to see more police officers on patrol in the area as we continue to search for Sarah.

If you want to approach them about any concerns you have, please do so.

We're here to support the community and we genuinely want to help in any way we can.

By now it was a few days into the investigation and police are still scouring through every security tape that's been submitted for review.

Most of them are turning out to be useless but every so often they would spot Sarah.

These videos and still images would be released to the public as quickly as possible in hopes that it could jog people's memories if they'd seen her that night.

And then one tape comes in that changes everything.

A car's dash cam had caught Sarah standing on the side of the road speaking to someone.

A white Vauxhall Astra had been parked up on the side of the road, its hazard lights flashing.

The driver had seemingly pulled over and gotten out to speak to Sarah Everard.

It was at about 9.30pm and it was already dark outside.

So the footage of this interaction is so blurry that the person stood there with her can hardly be identified.

I mean, Sarah was only really identified because she was wearing very distinctive clothing that day.

She had a blue raincoat on and like diamond patterned leggings.

She was quite easy to make out even in grainy, dark footage.

But this person with her...

I mean, it was believed to be a man, and that is literally all they could really tell from this grainy image.

So it was also out of the question that the vehicle's registration plate could be figured out.

All in all, this footage was a major lead, yet a relatively hard one to actually follow up on.

But just this in itself, that Sarah had been stopped and spoken to by an unidentified man, I mean, it practically confirmed police's worst fears.