Last picture of missing twin

This is the last photo of missing student Sally Geeson before she vanished after a New Year's Eve Party.

The 22-year-old is pictured celebrating with friends at a party in a pub in Cambridge at around 8.45pm. Five hours later she had disappeared.

In the early hours of New Year's Day, Miss Geeson, a forensic science student at Anglia Polytechnic University, sent a series of text messages to her friends pleading for help. The messages took several hours to arrive as the mobile phone system jammed with users sending New Year greetings.

Miss Geeson's identical twin sister today said her family now "fear the worst". At the family home in Southend, Julie Geeson described the waiting for news as unbearable for everyone, including their mother Sue, 46, an education consultant.

She said: "You try to stay positive but you can't help thinking the worst. Now it's the fifth day and we have heard nothing." Her mother added: "We are preparing ourselves for the worst news."

Miss Geeson's flatmate Kirsty Pyle, 25, is in the photo with her and another friend Dominic Lewis, 28. Miss Pyle said today: "I left at about 1am and she was still there. I remember dancing with her at some point and she was happy as Larry."

In a separate development, the last of Miss Geeson's party to see her that night has told how she suddenly disappeared. Steve Penfold, 24, left the city-centre Avery pub with her after their friends had gone home and they went to a nearby kebab shop where she bought chips. As she ate them a minor scuffle broke out among other revellers. Mr Penfold helped break up the trouble but when it was over she had disappeared.

She later sent text messages to friends,

one saying: "No one waited for

me I've got into a car with some one please call me x".

A second message sent two minutes later said: "Please help me x". It is not known when a third message, saying she was lost, was sent.

Records show that her mobile phone - a silver Nokia 8210 - went dead at 9.44am on New Year's Day. Experts are trying to establish whether it was switched off, or if the battery ran out. Police appealed to anyone who may have found the phone to contact them.

Mr Penfold, a recruitment consultant, from Romford, met Miss Geeson for the first time through a friend that night, and they were among a party of about 20. He said that when they left the pub, "it was two drunk people on the street, where the cabs pick up". After she vanished, he went back to the pub "and went round twice looking for her because the bouncers saw her go back in.

"Because it was her home town I had no idea that she would be in trouble." He finally gave up trying to find her and walked to the train station, only discovering what happened later in the day.

Police are studying CCTV in the hope of spotting Miss Geeson and trying to trace where her phone was when the texts were sent.

Detectives are investigating a sighting of a distressed woman matching Miss Geeson's description on the 12.45pm Norwich to Sheringham train on Sunday, 2 January. Anyone with information should call police on 0845 456 4564.