Poster plea in missing woman hunt

The poster campaign is running in Sunderland and London

A poster campaign has been launched in a bid to trace a missing woman and her five daughters.

Natalie Bracht, 34, left her Sunderland home on 17 May with her children and is believed to have travelled to London.

Police have said that as the search enters its third week they are increasingly concerned about the safety of the girls, aged between five and 13.

Northumbria Police officers are being assisted by their counterparts in the Metropolitan Police force.

After recent information placed the family in the Harlesden area of London, officers now believe she may have moved to another part of the city, or even returned to the North East.

DI Peter Bent said there had been a very good response from the public.

German accent

"The appeal has generated some interesting lines of inquiry, which we are busy following up," he said.

"However, there is still a lot we don't know about Natalie and her movements since she left Sunderland on 17 May, and we hope that our new poster campaign, running both in Sunderland and London, will generate more information.

"As our investigation enters its third week, our concerns for the family continue, and I would urge anyone who has any information about where Natalie and her daughters are now to contact our incident room in Sunderland immediately."

Ms Bracht moved to the North East in 2006 with her children from Germany and speaks good English, with a heavy German accent.

The father of three of the girls has travelled to the UK from Germany to help with the investigation.