Police come up empty-handed after digging up two gardens in search for missing gran Lorraine Ridout
Lorraine Ridout was last seen in January and extensive search attempts have found nothing so far
POLICE digging up two gardens in the search for a missing gran have come up empty-handed.
Lorraine Ridout, 57, was last seen on January 31. A frantic manhunt to find out what happened to her has been ongoing since.
Lorraine's family launched a desperate campaign to trace her - even hiring psychics, who said her body was in the River Taff, in Cardiff, to help with the search.
Months on, with no sign of Lorraine, detectives swooped on two Cardiff homes and began digging up her garden.
Lorraine's three-bedroom semi-detached house in the Gabalfa suburb was searched with sniffer dogs and forensic teams being drafted in to help.
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Cops were also seen putting up a blue tent in the garden and carrying bags of rubble out.
The garden has been marked into grids with each bag of rubble given a grid reference.
A neighbour said: "It is a big operation - like something you see on the TV and not in an ordinary street. The police wouldn't be doing this unless it was very serious."
A spokesman for South Wales Police said: "We can confirm that searches which have been ongoing at the property in Heol Trelai, Ely, as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Lorraine Ridout, have concluded.
"Searches at another property in Aberporth Ropad, Gabalfa, concluded on Friday, 21 October, 2016."
Detective Chief Inspector Mark O'Shea, said: "We have undertaken extensive searches at both addresses in the hope that we find something which may help us establish what happened to Lorraine before she disappeared, whatever that could have been,.
"But I can confirm we are no further along in finding out what happened to Lorraine.
"I do believe that the answer to her disappearance is somewhere within north Cardiff.
"I want to find answers for her family so it is very important that anybody who has any information, however insignificant it may seem, contacts us if they have not before."
No further arrests have been made.
In February two of Lorraine's daughters contacted psychics in their desperate search for their mum.
The psychics were convinced Lorraine had entered the River Taff and was stuck beneath the surface.
Daughter Christine, 33, said: ";It is a massive bend and the psychic said it was a large bend.
"The psychic said my mum's stuck there. A second psychic has also confirmed that.
"We found the location and this is where we believe she is."
But an extensive search by police dive teams failed to find Lorraine in the river and the search has continued.