Missing girl, six, who police found dead at an abandoned hotel just hours after she vanished from her Scottish island home

A six-year-old girl was found dead today after going missing on a Scottish island. 

Alesha MacPhail from Rothesay, Isle of Bute, was reported missing at 6.25am today. At about 9am, officers found her body on the site of a former hotel.

She was discovered at the site of the old Kyles of Bute Hydropathic Hotel in the Port Bannatyne area of the town, which was demolished in the 1970s.

Local property developer John Morrison told BBC News: 'I saw the police barriers about 500 yards back on the road.

'When I went down into my site I got a phone call from my partner telling me a wee girl had been missing and she had been found dead. 

'It was a horrible shock. Then just after that more police started to come, men in the white suits, and a van full of police who I take it had been searching earlier.'

He added: 'Terrible, terrible. We are going to know the family or someone connected with them. It brings it right home, it is such a shock. I feel so sorry for the family.'


A Police Scotland spokesman said: 'At around 6.25am this morning, police were informed a six-year-old girl was missing in Rothesay.

'A search was undertaken to try and locate the child. At around 9am the body of a young female child was discovered in the grounds of an old hotel.

'An investigation has been launched and enquiries are ongoing to establish the exact circumstances of the incident.'

The spokesman added the child's body was discovered in woodland, on the site of the former hotel, near to Ardbeg Road.

The island in the Firth of Clyde has a population of around 6,500 and sits around 40 miles west of Glasgow. 





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