Missing model found "safe and well"

A teenage model, who had been missing since going to visit a friend in London, has been found "safe and well", police said.

Kovi Dunbar, 17, from the Cwmbran area of South Wales, disappeared after leaving home with three suitcases to visit a friend in the Croydon area on April 2.

Miss Dunbar's mother, Cynthia Langeveldt, had earlier set off for London with her partner Sion Stallard and her three younger children, in a desperate bid to find her daughter.

But hours later Gwent Police announced that Miss Dunbar had been found "safe and well in the London area."

It is thought the young beauty queen was finding it difficult to come to terms with a facial condition.

Miss Dunbar was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy more than two years ago and was bullied at school due to the condition which paralyses facial nerves and causes one side of the face to droop.

After being reunited with Miss Dunbar, Mr Stallard and his family were preparing to travel back to South Wales without her because she intends to remain in London with a 20-year-old man she met through the internet.

Mr Stallard said: "Kovi is going to stay in London with the boy she met. They have got a bed-sit but they refused to tell us where it is. I don't know what is going on.

"Cynthia is not taking it too well but she is trying to hold it together for the kids more than anything."

He added: "It is one thing that Kovi is safe and well but it is going to eat away at Cynthia slowly that she is not under the same roof as her."

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.