Police used bolt cutters to open tin shacks at a WA campsite after four-year-old Cleo Smith vanished, but campers still drifted in and out for hours, friends say.

Police used bolt cutters to open metal huts at the WA campsite where little Cleo Smith disppeared, but campers drifted in and out for hours before the Blowholes site was closed, according to friends.

An online discussion among friends of fellow campers of Cleo’s mother Ellie and the little girl’s stepfather, Jake Gliddon, has thrown some light on what happened after Cleo disappeared.

The friends revealed campers had spoken with Ellie Smith and her daughter Cleo on the Friday evening before the tragedy unfolded.

Ellie Smith has reported to police that after she, partner Jake Gliddon, Cleo and the couple’s seven-month old daughter Isla went to bed, she woke around 1.30am to give Cleo a drink of water.

At 6am, the family woke to find their tent was unzipped with a flap open and Cleo was gone.

Campers at the Quobba Blowholes site, 75km north of Carnarvon in WA’s Shark Bay world heritage area, joined in the search after the alarm was raised.

WA police issued a statement at 10.55am that four-year-old Cleo, last seen dressed in a pink and purple onesie, was missing from the family tent.

However, according to the online discussions seen by news.com.au, the campsite was not closed for hours afterwards.

The wilderness camping site, easily accessed by a bitumen road, does not require campers to pre-book but instead to pay online with a ranger visiting daily to check registrations.

It was later revealed some campers heard car tyres “skidding” around 3am and that Cleo’s red and black sleeping bag had vanished from the tent along with her.

According to the report of the campers who had met Cleo and Ellie on Friday night, new campers were arriving for hours after Cleo disappeared.

But the report said police were “very thorough in taking everyone’s details who left the site before it was officially closed”.

The wilderness campsite offers unpowered camping sites only, and in between sites which offer direct views of the Point Quobba beach blowholes are others situated between the dunes and shacks.

On Saturday, all the tin sheds were opened with bolt cutters to see if there was any sign of Cleo inside.

Three days later, on Tuesday, police searched further seemingly empty shacks in the area as it had not yet been ruled out that Cleo might possibly still be in the area.

The campers who met the family described Ellie Smith and Jake Gliddon as “absolutely distraught” in the hours after Cleo’s disappearance.

The couple fronted the cameras on Tuesday afternoon, looking exhausted as they recounted their previous four days, and saying Cleo would not have willingly strayed from the tent.

“Absolutely everything was going through my mind,” said Ellie about Cleo’s disappearance.

“Where is she? She needs breakfast, what’s she doing? Everything was going through my head.”

Ellie Smith, who grew up in Carnarvon and works as an eyebrow and lash technician at the town’s Driftwood Beauty Lounge, spent childhood holidays around the Blowholes camping area.

Two private local helicopter companies have joined WA sea rescue and SES volunteers in the search for Cleo, making sweeps of the beach and coastline.

An aerial stock muster pilot at Coral Coast helicopters brought in a larger chopper to ferry three people for a daylong search of the area.

Police said Cleo’s biological father Daniel Staines had been questioned in Mandurah, 1000km south of the Blowholes, as standard procedure.

There is no suggestion Mr Staines had anything to do with his daughter’s disappearance.

Police will not comment on the reports of a car skidding heard at the Blowholes site on the morning in question.

News.com.au have asked WA police to confirm what time the campsite was closed off last Saturday, and about the search of the tin sheds at the campsite.

candace.sutton@news.com.au

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