POLICE are "increasingly concerned" about a 13-year-old girl who has been missing since Monday.

Relatives of Asata Budd, from Bournemouth, are distraught after she went to meet friends and did not return.

The family, from Throop, had been on holiday abroad and had returned to England to visit a relative in Woodford Green, Essex.

Asata left at around 5pm on Monday, saying she was going out with friends, but did not come back as expected at 6pm.

She was last seen at 12.30am that night by friends in the Woodford Green area but has not made contact with her family.

Asata is described as a light-skinned black girl, 5ft 6ins and slim with light brown eyes and dark brown shoulder-length hair that is tied back. She has a scar in the centre of her forehead that is about an inch long and she wears a gold rope necklace with an African map pendant.

Anyone with information is asked to call Barkingside Missing Persons Unit on 020 8345 3538.