British teen runs away with teacher

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EAST SUSSEX, England, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- British police say a 15-year-old girl believed to have run off with a teacher made contact with a friend to say she arrived safely in France.

Megan Stammers of East Sussex is suspected to be with Jeremy Forrest, 30, a math teacher at Stammers' school, of her own volition, the BBC reported. Police said they believe Stammers and Forrest took a ferry across the English Channel to France, the British network said.

Stammers told her parents Thursday she was sleeping over at a friend's house, but the school called her mother, Danielle Wilson, to say Stammers had not shown up Friday morning, The Daily Telegraph reported. When the friend Stammers was supposedly with arrived and said she hadn't seen Stammers, police were called, the newspaper said.

Wilson made a public plea to her daughter Monday.

"Sweetheart, I don't care what you've done or why, I just want you home," she said.

The Telegraph said police disclosed Stammers had apparently sent a text message to a friend to say she had arrived in France. While the message had not been sent from her phone, police took it as a positive sign she was safe.

"There was a message passed to one of her good friends to say she had arrived safely in France," Chief Inspector Jason Tingley said. "That gives us some comfort that she has arrived safely and she is in France."

Tingley issued a plea to the girl to get in contact with her family or authorities.

"We need hear that you are OK," he said. "Your family and friends are extremely worried but you are not, and I must stress, you are not in any trouble."

He also directed a request to Forrest.

"Our priority is to know that Megan is safe. I would ask you to do the right thing and make contact with us," Tingley said. "We will work with you to get you both safely back into this country."