A SHEPPEY teenager went missing from a young offenders' institute and his parents were not told for five days.

Lorraine and Michael Adach had dropped off her son, Adam Crawford, at the train station to go back to Huntercombe Young Offenders' Institute in Oxfordshire but he never arrived back.

Adam, 17, had been on an unaccompanied day trip to find somewhere to live on his release when he went missing on Thursday, October 16.

His mother and stepfather had escorted him to Sittingbourne Railway Station but he never got on the train back to Nuffield, south Oxfordshire.

It was not until the following Tuesday that they were told Adam was missing. Police in Gravesend stopped him a week later in connection with an unrelated incident but they let him go.

He eventually contacted his parents the next day, after 13 days on the run and they drove him back to the institute.

Adam had been due to be released at the end of October after a nine-month sentence for car related offences but he has had his sentence increased by a month.

The Home Office said Adam's Youth Offending Team should have contacted his parents to let them know he was missing, as the institute did not have their number.

Kent police said a full investigation was under way after they received a letter of complaint from Mr and Mrs Adach.