Response to Cambodia missing plea

Police officers from Sussex have helped the search in Cambodia

Possible leads are being followed up in the case of a Sussex backpacker who disappeared in Cambodia in 2004 after telling his parents he was coming home.

Eddie Gibson's parents, Mike and Jo, made a TV appeal for information in the capital Phnom Penh on Tuesday.

His father said that two or three responses of interest were now being examined by Cambodian authorities.

"We're not giving up," Mr Gibson said. "While we don't have the answers, there is still hope."

He added: "If Eddie had been the victim of a spontaneous robbery, we would have thought that a body would have come about by now.

"£10,000 is a life-changing sum of money in Cambodia, and we hope it will bring us the information we need."

Not on flight

The television appeal came two years and three months after Mr Gibson, 21, from Hove, East Sussex, went missing.

He was three weeks into a combined Asian and Pacific studies and international management course at Leeds University when he decided to travel to the Far East.

Two weeks later, on 24 October, 2004, Mr Gibson's mother received an e-mail telling her he would be flying home from Thailand a week later - but he never arrived.

Investigators have completed a picture of his movements up to 23 October, but what happened the following day remains a mystery.