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 did n'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 .
Paige Chivers was aged 15 when she disappeared from Blackpool home . Despite police appeals and a £12,000 reward , she has never been found . Gareth Dewhurst is on trial accused of murdering schoolgirl in August 2007 . His friend Robert Ewing is accused of assisting in disposing of body .