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Gus Lamont went missing in September and police have given up hope of finding him alive (Image: South Australia Police)

The heartbroken grandparents of a missing tot have broken their silence with a defiant statement after police scaled back their search.

August “Gus” Lamont’s disappearance from a yard in the remote Oak Park homestead in the Australian outback sparked a major air and land search.

Despite the huge operation combing the area, which is around 300km north of Adelaide, no trace of him has been found apart from a footprint.

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The only trace of the little boy was a footprint (Image: South Australia Police)

Last week, the search was downgraded as police gave up the hope of finding the youngster alive.

However, Gus’s grandma, Josie Murray, has now said the family was still hopeful. “We’re still looking for him,” she said. She then declined any assistance with the search effort. “You can’t help. We are still dealing with this,” she said.

Locals are now advising volunteers who had travelled to the area to help to turn back to let the family come to terms with their grief.

One neighbour told the Adelaide Advertiser: “I know this family very well and they don’t want people turning up and having to just deal with that. Even if the people are well-meaning and sympathetic, they just want peace and quiet and to try and work out for themselves what’s actually happened.”

Officers were only able to locate one footprint 500m from the property in Yunta, north-east of Adelaide, Australia. On October 3, police issued an update, stating that if Gus is found, he probably won’t be alive.

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The search is thought to be one of the largest in the state’s history (Image: South Australia Police)

South Australian Assistant Police Commissioner Ian Parrott said: “‘While we’ve all been hoping for a miracle, that miracle was not eventuated. And in the last 48 hours, despite the professional advice it being unlikely that Gus would have survived, we have maintained and in fact increased the effort to try and locate him and bring him back to his family.

“We’re confident that we’ve done absolutely everything we can to locate Gus within the search area, but despite our best efforts, we have not been able to locate him, and unfortunately, we are now having to scale back this search for Gus.

“We won’t stop, we will continue to investigate and follow any lines of inquiry that we currently have… but everything that we have found to date, every piece of information and evidence that we have explored to date, indicates that, as best as we know, Gus has wandered off from this property and we have not been able to locate him.”