THE family of missing student Steve Cook have renewed their appeal for information, saying they will never give up the hunt to find him.

His brother Chris Cook, from Middlewich, said they would spread their net far and wide after an exhaustive search of Malia, the Crete resort where Steve went missing on September 1, produced no concrete leads.

The family of the 20-year-old, from Sandbach, will now liaise with the foreign office and police in Crete to determine the next course of action.

Chris, aged 30, said: "The foreign office is thinking that the police have exhausted a lot of their enquiries in terms of who they have spoken to, and they now need to cover a wider area.

"The police are now waiting for instructions in terms of what we want them to do, so we'll be getting together for that.

"A lot of information is still coming through and we are forwarding all of it to the consulate.

"The problem is the authorities have to determine between what is truth, and what is hearsay and rumour.

"There is a lot of that flying around, but the hunt is still on and we will find him."

The Cook family had hoped that Steve was featured on a poster circulating the island of an unidentified man in a local hospital.

But Steve's brother Tony and cousin Mike, who returned from the island last week, found the poster had been removed, with the authorities believing the man to be an Irish tourist who was hurt in a biking accident and later died.

Steve also featured in Light at the end of the Tunnel - a programme about missing people - on Greek national television, and Chris and his mum were interviewed on GMTV yesterday, Tuesday.

Anyone with information should visit www.findstevecook.co.uk.