Officer questioned after Naomi found

Officer questioned after Naomi found

The last confirmed sighting of the pair was at a shopping centre

Police are to question one of their officers after he and a missing teenage girl were found safe and well on remote moorland in northern Scotland.

Officers from West Mercia Police and the Northern Constabulary have been searching for 15-year-old Naomi Mills and West Mercia Police constable Matthew Brooks since Friday.

Concerns for the pair grew when the couple's borrowed car was found semi-submerged in the sea on a beach in Tongue, near Thurso, on Sunday morning.

The pair were found at 1940 GMT on Monday, three miles south of Tongue, near to where their car was found.

'Care of the police'

Naomi's parents said they were "relieved and grateful" that their daughter and her boyfriend had been found safe and well.

Police said that both Naomi and Pc Brooks were under observation at a hospital in Scotland.

A West Mercia Police spokesman said the couple would be returning to England later on Tuesday.

"They are currently described as being safely in the care of the police," he said.

The pair were walking in a wooded area near to the southern end of Loch Craggie when they were found by a police dog handler, said Inspector Matthew Reiss of the Northern Constabulary.

'Satisfactory conclusion'

"I am delighted that the two people have been found safe and well," he said.

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those members of the public and the press who assisted in bringing this case to a satisfactory conclusion."

The Glasgow-based Herald newspaper said one of its reporters discovered the missing couple.

The Highland correspondent for the paper, David Ross, spotted them out walking at around 1800 GMT and alerted police.

Although officers were quick to arrive at the scene, it was not until two hours later that the pair were found again by a police dog handler, the paper reported.

The car was found near a causeway

Describing the moment he spotted the couple, Ross said: "They were dressed in dark outdoor clothing, both with black woolly hats pulled down over their heads.

"I passed them and looked in the mirror. They appeared completely unperturbed, engrossed in each other as they walked intertwined on the road to Altnaharra."

A search and rescue helicopter from Stornoway Coastguard had been called in to use its heat-seeking equipment to scan outhouses, bothys and roadsides in the surrounding area in the search for the pair.

CCTV stills had been released of the couple at Merry Hill Shopping Centre, in the West Midlands on Friday evening, shortly before she was reported missing.

PC Brooks, a probationary officer who is based in Worcester, is a long-standing friend of Naomi Mills's family, and his friendship with her is understood to go back three years, before he joined the police.

Naomi left her home in the St John's area of Worcester on Friday to walk to school.

PC Brooks, who has been in the force for less than two years, failed to turn up for work on Friday night.