Missing man's colleagues appeal

Mr Derrick has not been seen for six months

Colleagues of missing man Vinnie Derrick have appealed for help finding him, six months after he was last seen.

Mr Derrick, 29, has been missing since he left a works party at a club in Manchester city centre on 30 August.

The man, originally from Castle Donington, Leicestershire, was to stay at the home of his boss Julie Jones.

She said she spoke to him on his mobile phone three times to direct him to her house in Heald Green and cannot believe he has not been found.

Mr Derrick, from Partington, Greater Manchester, had got a taxi from the Jabez Clegg pub in Manchester.

I just kept expecting him to knock on the door any minute with a big grin on his face Julie Jones, Vinnie Derrick's boss

The taxi driver is believed to be the last person to see him alive but, despite appeals from Mr Derrick's wife Vicky and mother Vonny, who lives in Long Eaton in Derbyshire, he has never been traced.

Ms Jones, who runs the import and export company, said: "The first time Vinny rang me, he told me the taxi driver had been driving him round the houses so he had insisted on getting out in Didsbury.

"He tried to describe where he was, but he couldn't see any road signs so I told him to keep walking and call me back when he could.

"He called me twice more and I tried to direct him back to mine.

"When we finished our third call, I thought he was only about a 15 minute walk away, so I told him if he hurried I'd make him a cup of tea.

Mother's search

"When he still didn't arrive, I was so tired that I went to bed and left my daughter to wait up for him.

"But she fell asleep downstairs, so it wasn't until morning when I opened the curtains and saw his car that I realised he hadn't come back."

She said she rang his colleague Andrew Hackney to check if he had gone to his house instead.

She added: "As the morning passed, I didn't think anything bad had happened to him, I just kept expecting him to knock on the door any minute with a big grin on his face."

Mr Derrick's mother has since made several trips to Cheadle to search for her son without success.