THE mother of a teenager who disappeared on the Isle of Wight eight years ago is set for an emotional return to the last place he was seen.

Valerie Nettles will travel from her home in the US to Cowes to try to unravel the mystery of 16-year-old Damien's disappearance.

He went missing on November 2, 1996. He was captured on CCTV in a chip shop late that night but has not been seen since.

Mrs Nettles will distribute age-enhanced posters of her son during her visit to show how he would look now. She said: "I miss his wonderful, silly sense of humour and how the room came alive when he entered it. He was larger than life and teeming with mischief and fun."

Mrs Nettles will visit the Island for three days from November 22, while her daughter Sarah will also be appealing for information before her visit.

They will also visit the offices of the National Missing Persons Helpline charity, in London.

Mrs Nettles took the heart-wrenching decision to move to a new life in Texas away from the family home in Gurnard in 2001.

Along with her three other children, Sarah, James and Melissa - now aged 26, 20 and 16 - she moved out to join her American husband Ed, who had got a job in Dallas having been unable to find work in the UK.

They made the decision in the month that Damien would have been celebrating his 21st birthday.

She said it was made after much "soul-searching", but was intended to give her other three children a brighter future.

Damien, a former pupil at Carisbrooke High School, is 6ft 3in, of slim build. He has brown hair, brown eyes and a fair complexion. Anyone with information about his disappearance should call the National Missing Persons Helpline on freephone 0500 700 700.