Video shows moment lost three-year-old Anthony ‘AJ’ Elfalak reunites with his mum as police comment on missing CCTV

Police investigating the 72-hour disappearance of Anthony ‘AJ’ Elfalak have revealed a major clue as to why CCTV footage of the home went missing.

Questions remained unanswered about how four hours of CCTV footage disappeared when three-year-old Anthony ‘AJ’ Elfalak went missing, but police say the cameras’ motion detectors may hold a clue.

Although AJ was found on Monday after a frantic, 72-hour search, police said they were still pursuing lines of inquiry as to how the boy, who is autistic and non-verbal, disappeared.

AJ was detected by a police rescue helicopter at a creek 500m from the family home on the property at Putty, where he was drinking from a creek.

Family friend Alan Hashem told Sunrise on Monday that four hours’ worth of CCTV footage of the house, which downloaded into both a cloud server and to a memory device, had vanished.

Police Superintendent Tracy Chapman told Sunrise investigators would continue to “look at all aspects” including reports of missing CCTV footage.

“We will continue to look at that, but it is a motion-detected CCTV and there could be any number of reasons (why it wasn’t recording),” Ms Chapman said.

“There was certainly some period of time where there was no recording on the CCTV footage.”

The moment AJ disappeared was not captured on CCTV cameras installed across the property but police say there could be a simple explanation.

Superintendent Chapman was also asked about “suspicious footage” from a neighbouring property, as well as a white ute that was seized 78km from the Elfalak property.

“That is still part of the enquiry, and our investigation will continue to look at all those aspects,” she said.

It comes after emergency workers at the scene described the moments after the young boy was finally found.

AJ broke into a big smile and played with the name tag of the State Emergency Service (SES) volunteer who pulled him from a creek, before locking into an embrace and letting the man carry him to his mum.

“It was a very emotional situation,” SES Central Hunter commander Simon Merrick told Channel 7’s Sunrise program.

A team of paramedics and SES workers were sent to retrieve the boy with the assistance of the team in the air.

AJ was spotted by a police helicopter drinking water from a creek.

“Little AJ, he just did not want to let go of that SES fella,” Gerry Pyke with NSW Ambulance told Sunrise.

“He allowed us to sort of do whatever we wanted, he was really happy to see us.”

The first responders brought AJ back to his mum in a tearful moment that was caught on video.

“AJ! My AJ,” the mum, Kelly Elfalak can be heard crying in the video.

“Come boy, mummy.”

AJ’s father Anthony Elfalak runs to the scene where the three-year-old was found. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Peter Lorimer.

The video shows a sleeping AJ, wearing an SES hat, being handed over by a paramedic to Ms Elfalak.

It was posted by the boy’s godfather, who added the caption “We went from ‘broken’ to blessed” along with a heart emoji.

NSW Police confirmed to NCA NewsWire on Tuesday morning the investigation into the three-year-old‘s disappearance was “open and ongoing”.

The search near the property in Putty, in NSW’s Hunter Region, went on for three days before AJ was found.

The boy was in “surprisingly” good physical condition, suffering mostly from nappy rash, some cuts to his legs and ant bites.

“He was quite lucky, there were some cold nights there, and I think the fact that he was able to sort of get some water into him and have that survival instinct to go, ‘well I’ve got to drink something …’ he was in really good condition,” the paramedic Mr Pyke told Sunrise.