ANDOVER mum Elena Marsh has sent out a heartfelt thank you to residents and police who combed the town for her youngest daughter Leah Amber after she went missing from her Sheppard Square home on Tuesday.

Leah Amber, who is two and a half, escaped from the garden of the family home after they returned from a shopping trip at 1 30pm.

Unbeknown to her panic-stricken mother, she had climbed onto her red bike - which Elena didn't know she could ride - and made her way to the park on River Way.

After a 20-minute search of the local houses, gardens and shops, Mrs Marsh dialled 999.

Police were on the scene immediately with all available units called in to help.

And as word spread, dozens of adults and children from all over Andover's estates joined in the search for the missing toddler.

She was eventually found and returned to her mum - by a man thought to live in Sobers Square - at about 3pm.

Mrs Marsh says the episode has restored her faith in humanity and community spirit. She said: "It was an absolute nightmare.

"I was frantic.

"I was worried that she'd been run over.

"I don't know what I'd have done without all those people helping.

"The police were amazing and everyone was brilliant. I'm so happy I got her back. I wouldn't know how to thank everybody personally, but I just want to send out a massive thank you to everybody who helped.

"I didn't even really thank the man who found her, because I was just so concerned about Leah.

"She's been a little menace from the moment she was born. I had three children under the age of five - two of them within 11 months, and they were never as much trouble as this one.

"If my eyes are not on her, she's doing something naughty. "And I don't think it's going to end here!" Leah Amber was born in the back of an ambulance.

Since then her 'party tricks' have included cutting her curly locks into her own makeshift fringe and painting the mirrors with her mother's make up.