A RANSOM note was sent to police forces a letter claiming a missing woman was being held hostage.

Georgina Gharsallah was last seen leaving the Clifton Food and Wine store at 9.30am on March 7 2018.

But on April 14 Sussex Police received a letter claiming the missing 31-year-old had been held hostage for the past 12 months.

A Sussex Police spokesman said: “Sussex Police, and a number of other police forces, received a ransom email with a demand on April 14 from an individual regarding the disappearance of Georgina Gharsallah.

“Following numerous enquiries the email received is strongly believed to be a hoax.

“An investigation into the full circumstances and origins of this message continues with the originating email believed to have been sent from South Africa.

“Sussex Police are working closely with the authorities in South Africa to establish the identities of the fraudsters.”

Now Sussex Police have announced they are treating Georgina Gharsallah’s disappearance as murder.

Yesterday they released CCTV footage which has “recently come to light” of two women walking along Chapel Road in Worthing.

The footage was captured at about 4pm on the day of her disappearance.

Police are now keen to identify the other woman in the footage and are urging anyone with information to contact them.

Senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Andy Wolstenholme said: “We are hoping the newly released CCTV footage will jog the memories of people who were in this area of Worthing on that Wednesday afternoon.

“We have investigated many possible leads relating to Georgina over the past 18 months, however, we are no closer to establishing the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.

“Sadly I have had to consider the possibility that Georgina has come to harm at the hands of someone else, which is one of the hypothesis we have been working on.

“A number of vital enquires to test ‘proof of life’ have been conducted but to date, none of these have been able to conclusively show that Georgina is alive.

“While Sussex Police continue to look for Georgina, and hope above all else that we can find her safe and well, I have taken the decision to record her disappearance as a homicide.

“Sussex Police is committed to recording suspected crimes fairly, openly and accurately.

“We record crimes on the balance of probabilities, and having taken in to account the products of our large scale investigation, I believe it right that we record the potential for a homicide to have occurred.

“Frustratingly, we don’t know what happened to Georgina on that day in March 2018, she appears to have vanished without a trace.

“But that simply isn’t possible and someone, somewhere, knows what happened.

“Our recording of this possibility comes at the exhaustion of a detailed and lengthy investigation which has spanned a number of counties and reached out nationally and internationally.

“Officers have completed hundreds of actions in the desperate hope to find Georgina and establish the truth behind her disappearance.

“The recording of this crime does not mean that we have stopped looking for Georgina and all credible and reasonable lines of enquiry will still be investigated.

“It is never too late to contact Sussex Police or Crimestoppers if you have any information you think may be useful or relevant to finding Georgina.”