London Evening Standard/Paris


French police searching for runaway schoolgirl Megan Stammers and her teacher yesterday said they “could be anywhere in Europe” as photographs emerged of him and his wife on honeymoon last year.
Megan, 15, and Jeremy Forrest, 30, crossed the Channel last Friday after failing to turn up at Bishop Bell Church of England school in Eastbourne.
They are thought to be travelling in a black Ford Fiesta which was caught on CCTV on a Dover to Calais ferry crossing at about 9pm. But in the four days since they vanished there has not been a single sighting of them anywhere in France and it is thought they could have gone on to Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Italy or Germany.
“She could be anywhere in Europe by now,” said one of the French officers involved in the search. “Our search goes on, and the case is being well publicised in the media, but there has been no breakthrough.”
Forrest, from Lewes, East Sussex, married Emily Faulder, a 31-year-old photographer, last year in Brighton and went to St Lucia on honeymoon.
It is not clear whether the couple had split before Forrest left with Megan, from Eastbourne. Neighbours claimed the couple had rowed “constantly” in the last three years, in arguments so intense the police were called.
Yesterday it emerged that the school was about to suspend Forrest the day he and Megan vanished and East Sussex county council revealed it had been investigating allegations that the pair were in a relationship.
Staff at the school were apparently alerted to rumours eight months ago.
Friends of Megan are said to have raised concerns after they were seen holding hands on a plane back from a school trip to Los Angeles in February.
A friend said Megan started seeing Forrest in January and was “really excited” about the relationship.
The 15-year-old, who spoke with her mother present, said: “They would always text each other. He would send her messages saying things like ‘I miss you’ and ‘I can’t wait to hug you.’”
She said a pupil who had been on the trip to LA, reported the pair after sitting behind them on the flight. “She thought the behaviour was inappropriate as he is so much older and her teacher. We are really angry the school did not do enough to protect Megan.
“She would tweet about being in love and show us his texts. But after it was reported she stopped and then deleted her Twitter account. She never spoke about it after that and she didn’t tell any of us that she was leaving.”
The school was at the centre of another scandal in 2009, when teacher Robert Healy, then 27, was jailed for seven years after admitting having sex with two schoolgirls, one 15 and one 16.
Megan’s mother and stepfather, Danielle Wilson and Martin Stammers, yesterday appealed for her safe return. The last known contact was a text to a friend saying she had arrived safely in France.
A spokesman for East Sussex council said: “The school and the county council had been addressing and investigating concerns that had been raised, in line with procedure, when this happened. That investigation will continue and we will decide what action to take.”