Taxi driver 'dropped Sally yards from home'

The mystery over a student's disappearance deepened today after a taxi driver revealed he had dropped her off only 100 yards from her home.

The cabbie came forward to say he had picked up a woman matching 22-year-old Sally Geeson's description in Cambridge city centre and taken her to the road where she lived.

Detectives now believe text messages pleading for help were from Miss Geeson's phone - but were sent after she got out of the taxi. It is feared she was abducted within yards of her doorstep.

Miss Geeson went missing in the early hours of 1 January, after a New Year's Eve party with friends at the Avery pub in the city centre. Today Detective Superintendent Garry Swain, leading the investigation, said: "The driver is certain this girl was Sally and we are treating the sighting as a positive one." The cabbie did not think Miss Geeson was distressed, but that she had probably been drinking.

Police are becoming increasingly concerned for the welfare and safety of Miss Geeson, a third-year forensic science student at Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge. She left the party with a male friend at about 1am to buy chips but disappeared when he went to break up a scuffle outside the takeaway.

She sent three text messages to friends between 1.30am and 1.45am but the texts arrived late because the system was jammed with users sending New Year greetings. At the family home in Southend, Miss Geeson's identical twin sister, Julie, added: "I think the language and style of the texts sounded like Sally."

The inquiry will now focus on the Brook - the pub where the cabbie's fare asked to be dropped off - and the area of Miss Geeson's home in Brookfields. Mr Swain said: " Specialist search teams and forensic experts will today be revisiting that area. Officers will also continue to analyse CCTV footage from the city centre to see if Sally was caught on camera outside the Avery or getting into a taxi on Regent Street."

He appealed for witnesses who may have seen Miss Geeson near the Brook pub at about 1.30am who could have "vital" information.