THE girlfriend of a missing man has joined friends in launching their own efforts to find him.

As the divers scoured the murky waters of the River Foss in York, Ben Clarkson's friends gathered in the city centre, handing out leaflets appealing for information about the missing 22-year-old.

His girlfriend of five years, Rachel Peatfield, said she has not been able to make sense of Ben’s disappearance.

“It’s horrendous. It’s horrible, I have days I’m very positive and days I want to shut myself away. It just doesn’t make sense, he was happy,” she said.

“I have looked everywhere, me and his mum have been doing everything we can. It’s so out of character, it’s not like him.”

Ben, from the Heworth Green area, went missing on March 2. He was last seen in Layerthorpe at 3.40am but failed to reach home or turneup for job at a local music shop.

He disappeared on the same day the body of local student Megan Roberts, 20, was recovered from the Ouse in York after she had been missing for six weeks, also following a night out.

However Miss Peatfield insisted there was no evidence to suggest her boyfriend had fallen in the Foss.

“I don’t know what has happened. I don’t think he is in the river, I think he is still out there,” she said.

She had been out with a friend on the night Ben went missing and when she woke up to find he had not returned home she assumed he had stayed with friends.

She appealed to anyone with information to contact police. “I love him lots and I just want him home safe. He is the most gentle caring person ever.

“In case he is out there I want to say ‘your niece is missing you’, come home.”

When last seen Ben was wearing dark skinny jeans, a grey t-shirt with an Eiffel Tower logo on the front and dark pumps with white trim and white toe caps.

Anyone with information is urged to phone North Yorkshire Police on 101.