MORE than 1,500 North-East children went missing from care in recent years, a Northern Echo investigation can reveal.

Experts warned vulnerable children are at risk of being sexually or criminally exploited as a Freedom of Information request revealed the shocking statistics.

At least 1,582 youngsters from across the region have disappeared from foster care or residential homes since 2011.

While the majority went missing for short periods, the figures include children as young as seven and individuals who vanished for weeks at a time.

Almost 1,000 of the region’s missing children disappeared from care settings in Middlesbrough, with 509 vanishing in just one year.

However, the town – with 941 missing youngsters recorded since 2011 - has also seen a significant decrease in its figures, dropping from 509 in 2011 to 72 in 2014/15.

In North Yorkshire, 232 children went missing in the same period of time while Durham had 111 youngsters disappear between 2012 and 2015, with one teenager going missing 16 times in 2012 alone.

Stockton saw 148 children go missing, including “fewer than five seven-year-olds” while Hartlepool has had 132 children disappear a total of 691 times.

Redcar and Cleveland Council sent figures for 2013-2015, revealing a total of 11 missing individuals.

Darlington Borough Council’s response said the authority had dealt with 11 missing children in 2014/15 and revealed it had only begun recording the number of missing children “in a reportable format” from September 2014 due to media enquiries.

Experts said multi-agency approaches were essential in bringing down the number of children who flee care settings.

Figures dropped sharply in Middlesbrough after the local authority established a strong network of agencies that work together to tackle the issue.

Wendy Shepherd heads a Barnados project tackling child sexual exploitation on the streets.

She said: “Every young person running away is at risk of many potential dangers, whether it’s sexual exploitation, becoming involved in crime or being led astray by exploitative adults.

“There’s a level of vulnerability that comes with being in care and some people are quite willing to exploit that and encourage young people into consequences not good for them that are often downright dangerous.

“There are those out there encouraging people to go missing to be exploited sexually or criminally and we need to look very carefully at the reasons why young people run away and at who may be enticing them to do so.”

Looking at the root cause of why children go missing is essential in tackling the problem, Ms Shepherd added.

A North-East social worker said the problems at the heart of the issue were often complex and that the authorities were often aware of where children were, but were obligated to report them as missing.

She said the majority of children reported as missing were absent for short periods of time, often driven by the desire to return to their families – a problem exacerbated by authorities housing children ‘out of area’.

She added: “Most of them are teenagers, which the majority find difficult enough before mixing in the way they’ve been brought up and the things they’ve been through.

“Like normal teenagers, young people think they can take care of themselves.

“They often want to be back with their parents and a lot won’t understand why they can’t be.

“The kids usually don’t understand their own circumstances and we can’t tell them.

“There are so many reasons behind them going missing, perhaps they’re 14 and know their mother needs help looking after a two-year-old sibling or they’re from another area and are running back to their families.”

She added: “We need kids from Middlesbrough looked after in Middlesbrough and those from Darlington looked after in Darlington.

“We need to be more consistent across the board in dealing with children going missing and keep track of who it is and why they’re doing it.”

The local authorities that responded to the Echo’s FoI request issued similar statements to say they were taking the issue seriously and working to tackle the problem.

A spokesman for Middlesbrough Council added: “Although we can never be complacent it’s reassuring to note the number of such cases has fallen significantly in recent years and we would hope to see that trend continue.”