THE sister of a child who disappeared almost 40 years ago has hit out at police after claiming officers failed to properly follow up leads.

The case of missing Sandy Davidson has been given renewed publicity after First Minister Nicola Sturgeon lent her support to an online campaign which aims to help locate missing children.

Donna Davidson said that her family had never given up hope of finding her brother Sandy, who vanished from his garden in Irvine, Ms Sturgeon's home town, when he was three.

Mrs Davidson hit out at Police Scotland for failing to properly follow up information provided to them by members of the public and said that she hoped the campaign would spark officers into action.

She said: "Any publicity is good publicity. Over the last couple of years our own Facebook page has drawn quite a lot of interest and we have had people contacting us, and we've passed that on to the police.

"They tell us that they are dealing with it but we never hear anything more. Don't get me wrong, I understand that they have to deal with other crime and that my brother went missing a long time ago, but they are not following things up that we know could help with the case.

"A lot of it seems like old news to them. But at the end of the day my brother's body is still out there, either alive or dead."

She said that information which had been ignored included reports of a man who lived in the area, which was supplied by one of his relatives.

Mrs Davidson added: "I was with Sandy when he went missing, but I don't remember anything. I have lived with that all my life.

"My family will never rest until we find out what happened to him. It's something we've carried with us every day since 1976."

Ms Sturgeon shared details of the boy's disappearance 1976 and encouraged her 220,000 followers to do the same in an effort "to help find out what happened to him" on International Missing Children's Day on Monday.

The First Minister said she could vividly remember the child's disappearance, while a picture that had been digitally aged to show how the boy, who would now be in his 40s, would look today.

A spokesman for Police Scotland said the case has been regularly reviewed. He added: "All information provided to Police Scotland by members of the public is carefully considered and investigated, but unfortunately any line of enquiry investigated to date has yet to provide a resolution to this case.

"Should any additional information on Sandy's disappearance come to light, either now or in the future, it will be fully considered and investigated. Police Scotland remains in regular contact with the family and have kept them fully updated.

"Police Scotland would ask that anyone who has information in relation to Sandy Davidson's disappearance contact the police on 101."