A businessman is set to launch a new missing persons web site which he hopes will help thousands of people trace their loved ones.

Simon Allen has spent the last nine months setting up UK Missing and expects it to go online next week.

He has been given £4,000 from the Prince's Trust to help pay for the site, hoping it will become the main online directory for missing people.

Inspiration for the project came nine months ago when he was watching a television news report about a missing person and wondered what was being done to help others.

After looking on the internet, he realised most of the missing persons web sites were mainly reference sites and offered little help to those seeking friends and relatives.

To remedy the problem, Mr Allen, of Harbour Way, Shoreham, decided to create his own web site which would dedicate entire pages to individuals and contain message boards and zoom-in maps.

He gave up his job as a flower shop manager in the Midlands to concentrate on the scheme and has spent most of the last year checking what can be legally published on the web.

The main feature of the site will be a sleeping rough directory which will help people make contact with some of the 200,000 missing in the UK.

For a fee, family and friends of the missing people will have the option to provide detailed descriptions and photographs along with other relevant information which might help.

Besides members of the public, it is anticipated the site will be used by a range of bodies from the police and social services to the Salvation Army.

Mr Allen, 25, said: "I remember watching the news and wondering why the media tended to pick up on just the odd missing person when there were thousands.

"Then I looked on the internet and was amazed there was very little help for people with missing friends and relatives. There was obviously a gap that needed filling."

Mr Allen said he would put missing Sussex school teacher Jane Longhurst on the web site if asked to do so by police or relatives.

Miss Longhurst, 31, has not been seen by her family and friends for five weeks.

Sussex Police have been baffled by her disappearance and have had no clues to her whereabouts.

On March 14, she went missing from her home in Shaftesbury Avenue, Brighton, where she lived with her partner of four years, Malcolm Sentance.

A teacher at Uplands School for children with learning difficulties in Hollingdean, Miss Longhurst played the viola in several local orchestras.

Police have searched skips, empty properties, garages and parks but they have still to get the breakthrough they need.

The Argus has printed hundreds of posters asking for help to find Jane and Sussex Police are offering a £5,000 reward. Mr Allen is ready to put her picture on his site, if he gets permission from her family, so more people can keep an eye out for her.

He said: "The site can be used to help anyone who is missing, whatever the circumstances."

If the site, www.UKmissing.com, is a success, Mr Allen hopes to branch out into magazines and television and have his own UKMissing channel.

Monday April 21 2003