A MARRIED man has told of his secret love affair with missing shopworker Jenny Nicholl, The Northern Echo can reveal.

Unemployed David Hodgson - who was interviewed by police over the 19-year-old's disappearance - has admitted to a Sunday newspaper that he had sex with her five times.

Detectives announced earlier this week that the disappearance was being treated as a murder inquiry and they are convinced she knew her killer.

Mr Hodgson, 45, a former council landscape gardener, said Jenny, of Richmond, North Yorkshire, told him she was leaving shortly before she vanished four months ago.

It is understood he has told the Sunday Mirror that his family found out about the affair when he was interviewed by police. He was never arrested.

The Northern Echo revealed yesterday that Mr Hodgson had received death threats following the disappearance.

He first met Jenny - who would now be 20 - when she was 15, when she was a school friend of his daughter.

Mr Hodgson, whose marriage is now under considerable strain, said the affair began when Jenny was 19 and ended about a year ago.

He said he would see Jenny - described as a "typical teenage girl and not a tearaway" - around the pubs in the town because both were keen pool players.

They struck up a friendship and he would lend her money, handing over a large amount shortly before she was last seen by her parents, on June 30.

Mr Hodgson and his brother, Robert, who both live in Richmond, have both received death threats.

Last night, detectives said they were following up several fresh leads after Thursday's announcement that the missing person hunt had turned into a murder inquiry.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police said: "The investigating officers have received some positive phone calls from members of the public. These are being followed up."

Friends last night spoke of their feelings of anger and sadness. Darren King, 32, who played pool with Jenny, said: "Richmond is only a small town and I wouldn't like to be the person who has done this."

Another friend, who asked not to be named, said: "People had been fearing the worst for some time. But knowing she's not coming back doesn't make it any easier."

Her family, who said it was totally out of character for Jenny to go away without telling anyone, alerted police on July 4 when she failed to turn up for work at the town's Co-op store. Her white Rover 214 car was found abandoned at the Holly Hill pub, on the outskirts of Richmond.

Detectives have revealed that the killer may have sent texts using Jenny's mobile phone from the Carlisle area of Cumbria, on July 9, and from the Jedburgh area, in the Scottish Borders, five days later - designed to throw police off the scent.

Detective Inspector Peter Martin said the messages included personal information known only to someone familiar with Jenny.

Thirty police officers are working full-time on the murder hunt from an incident room at Richmond police station.

So far, 426 witness statements have been obtained, 1,900 documents examined, and 1,042 lines of investigation completed.

A police search advisor and a dedicated search team with human remains detection dogs have been drafted in.

Searches of moorland and woods surrounding Richmond will continue, detectives say.

Detectives say that Jenny's parents, Brian and Ann Nicholl, still hope police are wrong and that she will be found alive.

Anyone with information is asked to call police on (01423) 539334.