A DESPERATE Fareham mum is calling for her teenage daughter to phone home after she ran away to Yorkshire with a stranger she met on the Internet.

Kerry Green, 17, met the man at a Southsea funfair after communicating with him by mobile phone.

Kerry - who is described as "quiet and withdrawn" - disappeared early on Thursday and left a note telling her mother she was with a 24-year-old man.

Last Saturday, at around midday, police traced the couple to Scarborough, where Kerry was said to be safe and well.

Her mother Sarah Madden told the Daily Echo she was desperate to find out more about the man she is with.

She said: "We do not know anything about him. The police say that Kerry came into Scarborough police station and said she was quite happy and that she had a boyfriend."

Miss Madden, 40, said the boyfriend declined to talk to police officers - and that police cannot check his background as he is not suspected of committing a crime.

She said: "I am furious. They do not know who he is. They have not done anything to check if he is an unsavoury character.

"Why didn't he want to go in with her and support her? I think they ought to check him out and find out where she is living, but she says she's happy.

"I don't know anything about this guy - he could be anybody."

She added: "I cannot understand why a bloke would pick somebody up and move them out of their home without knowing them."

Kerry had no spare clothes, food or money when she disappeared last week.

A note left on her bed said her new boyfriend is aged 24 and white. It told her mother not to worry and reassured her that she would send on her new address.

Miss Madden, of Lea-Oak Gardens in Fareham, said the incident was "totally out of character" for jobless Kerry.

Miss Madden, who has another daughter Rebecca, 12, and son Richard, 15 - said she and Kerry have a very close relationship and that there had not been any major arguments recently.

She said Kerry would regularly communicate with strangers using her mobile phone's WAP Internet access.

On Wednesday, April 3, she met one such man at the Southsea Common funfair - although it is not known whether that was the same man she is with now.

Kerry's best friend Claire Didymus, 17, said: "She met him with me - I thought we'd be safer together.

"He was in the arcade standing by the pinball machine. He told us where he was and we knew it was him because we phoned him and saw him answer his phone."

The two girls accepted a lift from the man back to near Claire's home in Percy Road, Southsea, at around 8.30pm.

Claire said she thinks Kerry met the man once more before disappearing last week.

Claire said: "She told me that she liked him and that he asked her to be his girlfriend.

"I am really concerned. I think he may have enticed her into running away with him. I'd like her to come back home."

A police spokeswoman said Kerry has promised to phone her mum sometime this week.