TWO new leads have emerged in the continuing hunt for missing chef Claudia Lawrence.

New witnesses have come forward who both saw incidents which could prove key to explaining the 35-year-old’s disappearance a month ago.

In one a couple were seen arguing by a car near her place of work just ten minutes after Miss Lawrence was due to start her shift.

And in the second, a few days before she went missing, two nervous-looking men were seen outside her front door - and appeared to be trying to get in.

Despite a huge police operation Miss Lawrence, a chef at York University’s Goodricke College, has not been seen or heard from since the evening of March 18 and detectives fear she has come to harm at the hands of someone she knows.

Yesterday the man leading the inquiry, Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway, revealed a couple were seen arguing by a car on Miss Lawrence’s route to work on the morning she failed to turn up for her 6am shift.

A witness saw the altercation as he was driving in University Road on the campus on March 19 – ten minutes after the chef was due to start work.

The front passenger door of the car was open and the couple were standing on the opposite side of the road.

"It wasn’t a violent confrontation and we don’t know what the man and woman looked like," said Det Sup Galloway.

"The fact that the passenger door is open suggests that somebody has already been in that vehicle and a subsequent altercation has taken place.

"But I’d like to stress that we don’t know if the woman was Claudia. I would like to identify who these people are and I would appeal to them to come forward.

"This is a significant line of inquiry that we want to pursue."

He also appealed for information about two men seen outside Miss Lawrence’s home in Heworth Road, York, some days before she vanished.

On either March 10 or 13, a woman who was passing the house in slow moving traffic in the early afternoon saw two nervous-looking men at the front door.

"One of the men, an Asian male, appears to try the door – whether with a key or whether he just tries the door handle, we don’t know," said Det Sup Galloway.

"They were watched by the witness for three or four minutes, as she approached the roundabout at Malton Road.

"There could have been a legitimate reason, we don’t know, and I would appeal to these men to come forward."

The Asian man looked in his early 20s and was about 5ft 8ins tall, of slim build, with a thin pointed nose and dark areas under his eyes. His companion was taller, with short dark hair and a heavier build and was wearing a Crombie-style coat.

Anyone with information should contact police on 0845 6060 247 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.