SEVEN YEARS after hospital clerical worker Melanie Hall disappeared police are still no closer to solving the mystery of what happened to her.

The 25-year-old from Bradford Leigh has not been seen since disappearing after a night out with friends at Cadillacs nightclub, Bath, on June 8, 1996.

A tip off from a member of the public earlier this year led to two arrests by the police in connection with her disappearance.

Forty officers were put back on Operation Raphael and police forensic teams spent two weeks searching farmland near the hamlet of Inglesbatch for clues, but to no avail.

Melanie's family maintain it would be unlike their daughter to leave so suddenly and not contact them, and believe police must now be looking for a body.

On the seventh anniversary of his daughter's disappearance her father Steve Hall, who lives in Bradford Leigh with his wife Pat, said he was not expecting miracles when the latest investigation got underway in March.

He said: "We have always been kept very well informed and involved in the police investigation.

"There was always a possibility that it would fall through, and there have been many little aspects to the investigation over the years that have in the end come to nothing, so we were realistic from the outset that it may go nowhere.

"As the years go by it will become harder to trace the people who were involved with whatever happened that night."

The latest police investigation hinged on finding a crucial witness called Shelley.

She is thought to have been drinking in the Lamb and Lion pub in Bath on the night Melanie disappeared.

She is described as white, with long dark hair, and police think she may have worked in hairdressing when Melanie vanished.

Police say Shelley may have been walking towards Cadillacs nightclub but then changed her mind about going there.

For the police, the lapse of time has proved a problem, and they used the Euro 96 clash between England and Switzerland the day before she disappeared as a way of jogging people's memories.

Mr Hall said this was not the first time it had seemed they were close to solving the crime.

He said: "We had details of a scenario the police were working with of what could have happened that night.

"The trouble is that we all know what it is like, when youngsters are out at night, in town, things go on, and people are often reluctant to talk about it," he said.

Mr Hall is keeping busy with his commitments as chairman of Bath City Football Club.

He also runs art courses from his home in Bradford Leigh.

He said: "In the big scheme of things, we really have a lot to look forward to.

"My wife Pat is retiring later in the year which will be good for us both to have more time."