POLICE search teams combed dense woodland for the body of missing shopworker Jenny Nicholl yesterday.

Officers spent all day searching Badger Beck Plantation, near Jenny's home town of Richmond, North Yorkshire.

Detectives announced last week that the hunt for the 19-year-old had become a murder inquiry.

The search took place just over a mile from where Jenny's car was found abandoned at the Holly Hill pub, on July 4 - the day she was reported missing.

Detectives say the young woman would camp in the area with friends.

Members of the specialist search team brought in from Harrogate said they still had a large area of the woodland to check.

Inquiries at farms in the area have already been conducted. Outbuildings and barns have also been examined.

Searches have also been conducted of woods, moorland and disused lead mines on nearby Downholme Moor.

Jenny was seen camping on the moor with two friends the week before her disappearance.

The moor was also the scene of a bizarre incident a month after her disappearance when a man was found by police in a crude den.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police said yesterday's search had not found anything of significance.

He said: "It was one of many searches that have been made, and no doubt will be made.

"We are still following up information given to us by members of the public after the launch of the murder inquiry."

Police still want help tracing someone who sent texts from Jenny's phone from the Carlisle area of Cumbria, on July 9, and from the Jedburgh area, in the Scottish Borders, five days later.

Police claim the texts were sent to throw detectives off the scent.

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