THE husband of a woman who went missing more than a year ago has finally accepted she is unlikely to be found.

Anthony Coverdale said he believed his 40-year-old wife, Karen, had killed herself soon after disappearing last year.

She had a history of depression and had attempted to commit suicide twice before - the last time only two days before she vanished.

Mr Coverdale also said that as her car was found in the North Gare breakwater at Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, four days after she left, he was almost certain she had died there.

The mother-of-two has not been seen since she left the family home in Cragside, Ingleby Barwick, near Stockton, on the evening of March 19 last year.

For months, Mr Coverdale and her children, Ben, 17, and Alex, 14, had hoped that she would call or just walk through the door.

The National Missing Persons Helpline is displaying her picture on the side of a long distance lorry as part of a new national campaign to find her, and while Mr Coverdale, 44, hopes it brings good news, he is losing heart.

He said: "We would like her to come through the door one day but, as each day goes on, I think there is less chance of that happening.

"Some days I feel 99.9 per cent sure that she has died, but I feel I have to keep just some hope alive."

Mrs Coverdale had left psychiatric hospital the day she went missing, and vanished before doctors and her husband had time to take her back.

"If we haven't heard anything by the end of this campaign to find Karen, which is a week-long, I would rather the charity give the space to someone else," he said.

"Then I will probably get in touch with the coroner to see if we can get permission from Government to open an inquest."

Anyone with information is asked to call police on (01642) 326326.