article: A missing schoolgirl was murdered by a 60-year-old man who called police two weeks prior to the killing to see how officers would react to her disappearance, a jury heard today. Robert Ewing, 60, was said to have had an 'inappropriate sexual interest' in 15-year-old Paige Chivers and took advantage of her 'chaotic and dysfunctional' upbringing which had left her 'very troubled and vulnerable'. He is accused of murdering the schoolgirl, from Blackpool, Lancashire, between August 23 and August 27, 2007. Scroll down for video . Robert Ewing, 60, is accused of murdering 15-year-old Paige Chivers (pictured left as a young schoolgirl and right aged 15) after she disappeared from her family home in Blackpool, Lancashire, in August 2007 . Police investigate a site in Thornton Cleveleys in Lancashire during an earlier search for Paige's body . Paige was 15 when she vanished after a row with her father at their seaside home and, despite appeals from police and a £12,000 reward offer from TV chat show host Jeremy Kyle, no trace of her has ever been found. Ewing was arrested in connection with her disappearance in September last year and is currently on trial at Preston Crown Court. The jury was told today how he allegedly rang police anonymously less than a fortnight before she went missing to tell officers that a 'problem child' had turned up on his doorstep having been thrown out by her father. Brian Cummings QC, prosecuting, told jurors that the Crown Prosecution Service believes he did so to 'test the water'. He told the court: 'We allege that he wanted to see what official reaction there would be to the suggestion of a 15-year-old girl turning up on the doorstep of a 52-year-old man and the answer he learned, we suggest, was very little reaction.' The court also heard how eight months after the schoolgirl's disappearance, Ewing's friend, Gareth Dewhurst, 46, was overheard in conversation saying he had used his car to dump the teenager's body. Mr Cummings said: 'He then went on to say: "I didn't want to have sex with her, they made me".' The prosecutor said a 'highly stoned' Dewhurst told a 16-year-old boy that Ewing had killed Paige and had then made him have sex with her before forcing him to use his car to dispose of her body. Mr Cummings said: 'He (Dewhurst) said that he had put the body in the boot and was saying that he was going to set his car on fire. He was frightened that he was going to get arrested, or that Bob (Ewing) would kill him.' Paige (right) was 15 when she vanished after a row with her father at their seaside home (left) and, despite appeals from police and a £12,000 reward offer from TV host Jeremy Kyle, no trace of her has ever been found . Detectives hunting for Paige Chivers, who vanished in suspicious circumstances more than seven years ago, dug up a farmer's field amid fears she maybe buried in a shallow grave but still no trace of her has been found . An extensive proof of life inquiry has not found any evidence Paige is alive and she has yet to claim a 'significant' inheritance sum left to her on her mother's death once she turned 18, the jury heard. The prosecutor said: 'The prosecution say that even though no body has been recovered, you can be sure that Paige Chivers is dead.' The court heard that Paige's father reported her missing on August 26 and clearly stated she was 15, but her date of birth was wrongly entered on the police system as 1962. 'In consequence, the matter was dealt with as though Paige were an adult aged 45 who had moved on voluntarily, rather than a girl of 15 who was worryingly missing from home,' said Mr Cummings. That approach was not corrected until September 7 when police inquiries then commenced, he added. Ewing, formerly of Blackpool, denies murder and intending to pervert the course of public justice by intimidating witnesses and providing false information to the police in their investigations. Dewhurst, of Blackpool, denies sexual penetration of a corpse and assisting an offender in disposing of a body. The trial continues. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.
highlights: Paige Chivers was aged 15 when she disappeared from Blackpool home .
  Despite police appeals and a £12,000 reward, she has never been found .
  Robert Ewing is on trial accused of murdering schoolgirl in August 2007 .
  His friend Gareth Dewhurst is accused of assisting in disposing of body .
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