The step-grandad of missing schoolgirl Tia Sharp today denied he had anything to do with her disappearance - and made a tearful plea for her to come home.
Stuart Hazell, 37, claimed he 'loved Tia to bits' and said a previous conviction for dealing drugs had 'nothing to do' with her disappearance.
The 12-year-old has been missing since last Friday after she vanished without a trace from her grandmother's home in New Addington, near Croydon in south London.
Mr Hazell, a convicted drug-dealer is the boyfriend of Tia’s grandmother, Christine Sharp, and lives with her at the house where the schoolgirl stayed on the eve of her disappearance.
He was alone in the property with Tia shortly before she vanished on Friday.
During the interview with ITV News, Mr Hazell said Tia had 'a loving home' and begged for her to come home to finish the gardening that he'd paid her £10 pocket money for.
Mr Hazell, who previously dated Tia's mother Natalie Sharp, 30, said: 'Did I do anything to Tia? No, I didn't.
'I love her to bits she is like my own daughter. She has got a loving home. She wants it, she has got it.
'I know deep down she walked out of here. I know deep down she walked down that path. What happened after that I don't know.'
Asked about a drugs conviction which saw him jailed for 34 months in 2003, he added: 'They are digging up my previous that has got nothing to do with it - everyone has a past- that is 10 years ago.
'Its not about me it's about Tia - we have got to get her home.'
Breaking down as he looked in to the camera, Mr Hazell sobbed: 'Tia come home babes, come home - come back and eat your dinner. I want my ten pounds for the garden. I want things back to normal.'
When asked about what the schoolgirl was wearing the last time he saw her Mr Hazell said he knew what she was wearing because 'I washed her clothes that night.'
'It was a yellow, one of them tight tube things, grey, like jeans but they weren't jeans, jeggings? Chinos? Something like that I'm not up on women's clothes but she had her trainers on because her Ugg boots were up there COUGHS and she only had them, she was only going out to buy flip-flops, she was adamant about buying flip-flops.'
He described his last morning with the schoolgirl saying Tia had come downstairs 'round about half ten, eleven.'
'She'd been going on about going to Croydon and getting up early. She come downstairs, sat down, watching telly, played the DS, she had toast, then wanted a sausage roll - she was always eating sausage rolls - then she doesn't take her washing up so I take it out.
He said Tia had then gone upstairs to get changed and 'she was mumbling, I can't remember what about.'
'As I was hoovering, she walked past me, from the front room to go out the front door.
'She's responsible enough to go to Croydon herself, she knows buses & trams. She's done it all on her own, it was just an everyday thing but the one time you wanna bloody listen to her and you don't.'
He told ITV that Tia did not have keys to the home, and she said goodbye as she left the house.
'I said well make sure you're back at 6, she went "yeah yeah yeah" and that was it and the door closed and she walks out,' he added.
The hunt for the missing schoolgirl was stepped up again today with around 100 police pictured painstakingly scouring the 500-metre area she was last seen in.
Officers have been called in from Olympic duty and from other forces all over Britain to root through bins and garages, hoping it will lead them to Tia.
Refuse collections have been banned in the streets surrounding her grandmother's property in case any evidence has been dumped in dustbins.
Officers are inspecting everything by hand and taking away anything they believe looks suspicious.
South Yorkshire Police and the Police Service of Northern Ireland are also understood to be helping.
Earlier in the day, Tia's uncle David Niles made a desperate plea for her to come home.
Mr Niles, 29, said today he and his family refuse to contemplate that his 12-year-old niece, who has been gone nearly a week, was dead.
'We do not know what has happened to her. I do not want to think the worst. I want her to be somewhere safe and happy,' he said.
'My message to her would be just come home. There is no trouble, just walk through that door. Everything will be happy like it should be, don't worry.'
In a live TV appeal, he was followed by Detective Chief Inspector Nick Scola who asked the public to think carefully about whether they have seen Tia.
'
We are offering the family support and to remind them that we are desperately trying to find Tia. We are doing all we can,' he said.
'I want to remind people that it will be a week tomorrow that she went missing that that the hard work will continue.'
It came as her grandmother admitted to police she did not see Tia in the 24 hours leading up to her disappearance.
It was believed that Christine Sharp, 46, spent a night in with the 12-year-old and her partner Stuart Hazell, 37, at their home in New Addington, near Croydon, south London.
But Mrs Sharp is reported to have told officers that she was actually working as a carer late last Thursday and arrived at her house later the next day after Tia had vanished, according to the Mirror.
Convicted drug-dealer Hazell lives with Christine at the house where the schoolgirl stayed on the eve of her disappearance.
In 2010 Hazell was jailed for 12 months at Croydon Crown Court after he was caught in possession of a machete.
In 2003 he was sentenced to two years and ten months for one count of dealing crack cocaine.
Tia, who has never run away before, went without a trace on Friday afternoon after telling relatives she was going to the Whitgift Centre in Croydon.
Last night Mr Hazell was taken to a police station to clarify his statement about the 12-year-old’s movements before she vanished.
The 37-year-old is thought to be one of the last people to see Tia, and was interviewed by police for more than two hours as a witness on Wednesday. He has not been arrested.
Mr Hazell showed no emotion and declined to comment as two detectives led him from the house to an unmarked car.
He has now returned home and while Mr Hazell was with police, Tia’s uncle David Sharp posted a message of support for him on the
Facebook page Help Find Tia.
Mr Sharp wrote: ‘Stuart has done nothing wrong the police are doing their job he has got to make a formal statement that’s all so stop pointing your fingers we are not the sick family you are trying to make out so if you are not willing to help find Tia LEAVE THIS SITE.’
Unofficial search parties also looking for Tia Sharp have broken into garages on the estate where she lives.
One resident said he’d heard that a gang of youths had taken the law into their own hands in a bid to try and find her.
The neighbour, who did not wish to give his name said garages several hundred yards from her home close to a parade of shops had been targeted.
'We heard some kids were trying to search for the girl and broke into some garages up by the parade of shops.
'I think they’re just run-down garages. I don’t know who they are of why they chose those garages.'
Unusually, Tia left without a mobile phone or travelcard and was carrying only £11, Mrs Sharp, 46, said this week.
‘She lost her travelcard ages ago but she’s still been taking public transport,' she added.
'
I can’t understand why nobody saw her. There were workmen here in the estate but nobody saw her leave.
'She promised her grandad she would be in by 6pm.’
Mrs Sharp said she still had Tia’s dinner in the oven as ‘I don’t have the heart to throw it away’.
A candle is burning outside Tia's grandmother's house, which was searched by a police dog yesterday.
Candles and tealights have been left at a makeshift vigil at a bus stop nearby, along with hand-written messages asking for the schoolgirl to be brought home.
Phillip Wheatley, her headteacher at Raynes Park High School in Merton, described her as a friendly young person who is well-liked by staff and students and enjoyed a successful first year at the school.
He said: 'Our thoughts are with Tia and her family at this time.
'I would urge anyone who thinks they may have seen Tia, or who has any information on Tia's whereabouts, to contact the police immediately.'
Meanwhile today police were searching bins outside Tia Sharp's grandmother's house today as the hunt for the missing schoolgirl continues.
Tia's mother, Natalie Sharp, 30, said she did not want to speak to reporters this morning but her partner, David Niles, 29, who left the house briefly to buy newspapers, said Mr Hazell would be giving a statement later.
Refuse collections in The Lindens had been suspended at the request of officers but resumed this morning.
More than 80 officers have joined the hunt for the youngster, which has dragged into its seventh day, while members of the local community have staged their own searches in the area where she vanished.
Scotland Yard has received more than 300 calls and 60 reported sightings of Tia, including a member of the public who came forward saying they saw her leaving her grandmother's house at about noon on Friday.
Metropolitan Police area commander Neil Basu said police could not be 'absolutely sure' who the last person to see Tia on the estate was. He stressed the investigation remains a missing persons inquiry, with no suspects.
'I am looking to find Tia safe and well,' he added.
Resources from the Olympics have been redirected to the search which involves around 40 detectives and 40 specialist search officers.
Mr Basu said police have collected more than 800 hours of CCTV footage from buses and trams, and viewed more than 120 hours of the material. He added that investigators would continue to collect CCTV as part of the '24/7 process'.
Searches have covered a 500-metre radius around Tia's grandmother's house, including woodland, garages, lock-ups and a school.
Mr Basu said he did not feel the schoolgirl would have left the area and the search was focused on the neighbourhood and Croydon, where Tia was heading to.
He thanked people from the Croydon and Mitcham areas, and praised those involved in the search for their 'generosity, their energy and their commitment.'
Detectives are trying to establish Tia’s movements in the hours before she went missing, after questions were raised over whether the schoolgirl left home alone.
Tia’s family have told police she left Mrs Sharp’s home alone at midday on Friday to buy flipflops from Croydon’s Whitgift shopping centre five miles away.
But relatives of painter and decorator Mr Hazell said he told them that he walked her to a tram stop.
Angie Niles, 69, whose son David Niles is Tia’s stepfather, said: ‘We’re worried sick, and I just don’t understand, why all these discrepancies?
‘It’s all changing, where she was, who spoke to her, and even what she was wearing. Everyone just needs to be open now.’
Police have now questioned convicted drug-dealer Mr Hazell, 37, the last person known to have seen the 12-year-old, following claims he walked her to a tram stop.
Tia’s stepfather David Niles, 29, insisted Mr Hazell had been doing housework at the home he shared with 46-year-old Mrs Sharp when the 12-year-old left.
But Mr Hazell’s father, Keith, said: 'He told me he walked her down to Addington tram station to get the tram to Croydon.'
Tia was seen on camera meeting Mrs Sharp’s boyfriend, Mr Hazell, in a Co-op store on Thursday afternoon, wearing the same yellow
vest top and grey skinny jeans she had on when she vanished the following day.
Mr Niles left his house today, wearing a Find Tia T-shirt, and said to reporters:'Just find my little girl, just find my little girl please.'