The family of a student who is missing in Cambodia say they are bracing themselves for bad news after a trip to the region where he disappeared.

Eddie Gibson, 20, a former Cardinal Newman pupil from Hove, went missing in October 2004 after telling his family he had booked a flight home.

Yesterday, Eddie's father Mike returned from ten days in the country and said the family would have to prepare themselves for the possibility of bad news.

During the trip Mr Gibson retraced Eddie's last known steps and visited the town of Poipet, near the border with Thailand, where police are focusing their investigation.

He said: "The border's difficult to control and is well known for people trafficking drugs and arms. There's a lot of corruption and crime and unfortunately if teenagers are travelling into Cambodia overland it is one of the main routes through.

"Some kids don't even know which forms they need to fill in and are easy prey to people who want to earn money from them.

"I do fear something bad happened and that maybe Eddie was murdered for money."

He said police chiefs hoped to uncover new information about Eddie's disappearance within the next few weeks by questioning more people in the area.

Mr Gibson said: "I hope the answers will rule things out but at the moment that seems like long odds. We have to 0brace ourselves a bit.

"We haven't given up hope of finding Eddie alive. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that points to the worst but we won't give up hope until there's absolute proof."

He said the trip had been worthwhile and that Eddie's family, including his mother Jo Gibson-Clark and brothers Elliott, 26, and Max, 16, were getting closer to finding out the truth.

Mr Gibson said he planned to return to Cambodia in the new year to keep up pressure on the Cambodian authorities to continue with their investigations.

Eddie was last seen in Phnom Penh on October 23 last year by a Cambodian girl he had a holiday romance with.

The next day he emailed his family to say he had booked a flight home but he never arrived and has not been heard of since.