The boyfriend of missing teacher Jane Longhurst has made an emotional plea to anyone who may be holding her captive.

He pleaded: "If someone is holding her, please let her go. Let her come home. Let her go so we can get on with our lives."

Malcolm Sentance, who fears Miss Longhurst has been kidnapped, said he was hardly sleeping or eating and was losing weight.

He weeps privately at night: "As each day goes by I feel more desolate and anxious."

Police yesterday searched a railway embankment near London Road station, Brighton, on the advice of a geographic profiler. He has estimated how far a body could be carried.

Police also revealed that a neighbour spotted Miss Longhurst walking to her front door in Shaftesbury Road, Brighton, carrying bags of shopping at 2.40pm on the day she disappeared.

Mr Sentance returned home and found her missing at 3.55pm the same afternoon.

Detective Chief Inspector Steve Dennis, heading the inquiry, said: "We have a gap of just over a hour we need to fill."

Mr Sentance said the 12 days his partner had been missing had focused his mind on what she meant to him.

He said: "If I see her again I will ask her to marry me. We used to joke about the idea a lot but there was nothing serious. Now I have had time to think about her."

Miss Longhurst, 31, a teacher at Uplands School for children with learning difficulties, disappeared from the couple's home on March 14.

Mr Sentance, 34, an education welfare officer, said he felt the eyes of suspicion on him in the first few days of the inquiry: "Detectives asked me if I knew where she was. I told them no.

"I did feel I was suspected but I know police have to do their job."

Mr Sentance said he was now comfortable with the police and praised them for their efforts.

One hundred police and staff are now involved in the hunt.

Mr Sentance said he had spent every waking moment thinking where she might be and whether there were clues from their past.

He said "we never really rowed" and there was no suggestion she had met another man.

Police were last night trying to trace members of the Brighton Youth Orchestra, which Miss Longhurst sometimes conducted.

Anyone with information should call 0845 6070999.