A NSW coroner has joined police as they continue to search bushland on the mid-north coast for signs of missing toddler William Tyrrell.
Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame spent a few hours on Tuesday touring the street in Kendall where the then three-year-old disappeared in 2014, and the surrounding area at the centre of a month-long forensic search.
The search is designed to rule out William dying in a case of misadventure in bush near his grandmother's home.
It's understood no clear sign of William has been found so far and, if nothing is discovered in the final week of searching, investigators will be able to confidently conclude the boy was abducted.
Ms Grahame's presence at the search is understood to be a result of the high-profile nature of the Tyrrell case, not because it has been referred to the coroner for an inquest.
Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubelin, the homicide investigator overseeing the 50-strong specialist search party, is open-minded about handing the case to the coroner in the future.
"I want to stress we have numerous lines of inquiry including persons of interest that we are going to fully exhaust before the matter goes to a coroner," he said at the start of the search in June.
"Until we know conclusively that William is not alive, we'll treat it with the possibility that he still is alive."
One of those lines of inquiry prompted a search in a small patch of bushland - a few kilometres from the main area - which was connected to a high-risk person of interest in the case.
Investigators said they gained clues from the second site but no clear evidence of William.
The coroner declined to comment while the police investigation was still active.
