POLICE searching for a teenage girl have revealed she failed to tell her parents that she had been sacked from her job before she vanished.

The parents of 17-year-old County Durham girl Lisa-Marie Perry have said they fear she may be pregnant.

Lisa-Marie, who lives with her parents in Lanchester, went missing on October 27, a week after she lost her clerical job at a store in Durham City.

She was so distressed about losing the job that she could not bring herself to tell her parents, and left for work as usual each day, returning at the same time in the evening. Her mother, Jean-Marie, 38, and stepfather Will, 34, have only recently discovered the truth.

Lisa-Marie was only days away from being reunited with her mother - who had been working abroad for five months with the United Nations - when she went missing.

She was seen a few days before she went missing with a young man who had his arm around her at the market place in Durham City. The last sighting of Lisa-Marie was on October 29, outside the Kofi Shop cafe in North Road, Durham City.

Acting chief inspector Alan French, of Consett police, said they were working on a number of leads.

He said: "We still have a few separate lines of inquiry which could place her in a number of different places."

A police spokesman had earlier stressed that her parents want her to know she can return at any time.

Lisa-Marie lived in Toledo, Ohio, in the US, until she was 13 and speaks with a distinctive American accent. She is 5ft 5in tall, has thick straight mousey hair and wears red-framed glasses.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Consett police on (01207) 504204