Reward to find missing hostess

Tim Blackman: " A very stressful situation"

The family of a British woman who disappeared seven weeks ago in Japan has put up a £10,000 reward for information that leads to her discovery.

Lucie Blackman, 21, was working as a hostess when she failed to return from a trip to the coast with an unidentified man on 1 July.

Her father Tim, from the Isle of Wight, said the family had decided to put up the money as part of a "longer-term strategy" for finding Lucie.

Mr Blackman said the mental and financial burden was becoming very hard to bear.

We're finding after seven to eight weeks that this is becoming a very stressful situation

Tim Blackman

"We're finding after seven to eight weeks that this is becoming a very stressful situation," he said at a news conference at the British Embassy in Japan.

"I'm not able really to manage to be here for longer than 10 or 14 days at a time."

Mr Blackman said he intended to return to the UK on Wednesday for two weeks when he would ask British companies for contributions to help finance his efforts to find Lucie.

Religious cult fears

He said he had already spent around £30,000 since he went to Tokyo on 12 July.

"It may not sound like much, but out of a small family budget it's quite a large tranche, really," he said.

Following his daughter's disappearance, Mr Blackman set up an office and information hotline to help police.

Ms Blackman went to Japan in May on a three-month tourist visa.

Lucie Blackman: Had been working as a nightclub hostess

She began working as a highly-paid hostess at the Casablanca Club in Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district.

Foreign women are paid to pour drinks and make conversation with Japanese clients.

Ms Blackman disappeared after telling a friend she was going to meet a man who had promised to buy her a mobile phone.

The friend then said she had received a phone call from a Japanese man who said Lucie was undergoing religious training at a cult.

This raised fears that Ms Blackman might have been initiated into a religious sect.

But Mr Blackman said he did not think that was likely as Lucie would not have joined voluntarily or been easy to persuade.

Tony Blair made an appeal to the Japanese people to help in the search on 20 July.

"It's obviously an appalling, heartbreaking story, and every parent's nightmare is to have their child working abroad and then disappear," he said.