A MOTHER issued an emotional plea for her daughter’s safe return more than a week after she went missing.

Thirteen-year-old Bethann Young was last seen leaving school at about 11.30am on Monday, March 23.

Last night, her mother Kay Young who lives in Moorbank, Blackbird Leys, Oxford, asked her daughter to make contact to let everyone know she was safe.

Miss Young said: “She is my world, if something happened to her it’s not worth living.

“If she reads this I would ask her to ring somebody or come home.”

Bethann was a pupil at Peers School, Littlemore, until she moved to Reading, last May. She now goes to Little Heath School in Tilehurst, Reading.

Her mother said: “She was getting on really well, she had stopped drinking and wasn’t doing any drugs or getting into any trouble. She had also started going to a gospel church.

“She ran away at Christmas and New Year for three days and then she came back and I don’t know if it was because of Mother’s Day because this was the first year without each other.”

Miss Young said her daughter had anger management problems and would often go off to calm down, but would always return after a couple of hours.

She said: “I am worried about her getting into the wrong crowd and you don’t know what’s out there, she could be raped or anything.

“I am struggling to deal with this, some days I am just sat there crying.

“Bethann is just full of life, a happy-go-lucky girl and all her friends miss her.”

Miss Young said she had spoken to most of Bethann’s old friends in Oxford — and no-one had heard from her.

She said: “I’m just getting really worried now, I am sure I would have heard through the grapevine is she had been in contact with someone here.”

Bethann is described as mixed race, 5ft 4ins tall, with dark brown shoulder length hair and brown eyes.

Thames Valley Police missing person’s co-ordinator Bob Phillips said: “Although Bethann has gone missing before, it is out of character for her not to have made contact with anyone she knows or for there to be no sightings of her.

“She is obviously vulnerable because of her age and I would ask anyone who sees her, or knows of her whereabouts, to contact police urgently.”

l Anyone with information about Bethann should contact police on 08458 505505 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk