MISSING teenager Natasha Coombs' boyfriend today told how his last words to the 17-year-old were “I love you.”Joshua Brennan, 18, made an emotional appeal during a press conference at Clacton police station and appealed for help in finding who he described as the best person in his life.

MISSING teenager Natasha Coombs' boyfriend today told how his last words to the 17-year-old were “I love you.”

Joshua Brennan, 18, made an emotional appeal during a press conference at Clacton police station and appealed for help in finding who he described as the best person in his life.

He said the couple separated two weeks before her disappearance, on July 27, but had hoped that absence would make the heart grow fonder'.

Mr Brennan, who is waiting for his A-level results and is due to attend an interview to work at an investment bank, said he spoke to Natasha at around 3.30am on the day she went missing.

He said: "My last words to her were 'I love you'.'

He said they recently celebrated their one-year anniversary of being together and had spent Valentine's Day in Paris and also been on a trip to Amsterdam together.

He added: "She had no reason to run away.

"Natasha, in my mind, is gorgeous. She is the most gorgeous person I have ever met.'

Holding up a life-size poster of Natasha, he appealed for anyone with information about her whereabouts to contact police.

She had recently finished a business course at Colchester Institute and taken a job with a property management firm in Colchester.

Mr Brennan said he was throwing himself into the hunt for Natasha to help deal with the pain of her disappearance.

He said: “I am taking each day as it comes. At the moment I am devastated but I can't sit back and do nothing that just makes it feel even worse. She had no reason to run away - she is not selfish enough to put her family and friends through this deliberately.”

Fighting back tears, he said: "I want us to live the life we've planned - to get married, have a house and some kids.

"Not only are you the best person in my life, you are my best friend and I miss you and I want you home.'

He said posters had been put up around the Manningtree area in Essex, which is where Natasha is believed to have got off a train she boarded at Ipswich at 10.42pm on July 27.

Natasha, of Dovercourt, Essex, had been out for a meal with friends at the Golden Dragon restaurant in Cardinal Park, Ipswich on the night of her disappearance.

Police believe she might have been upset about the separation from her boyfriend on the night she went missing.

Mr Brennan said he had also gone out in Ipswich but separately to Natasha and her friends. He said often when she went out with friends in Ipswich he would pick her up from Manningtree and drive her home but he had not heard from her that night.

Search teams have combed the fields between Manningtree station where Natasha's last mobile phone signal was found and Mr Brennan's home less than a mile away.

The couple met while they were both pupils at East Bergholt High School where Josh was in the year above Natasha.

Natasha previously lived in Brantham and was a keen member of village's amateur dramatic club.

Her grandparents, Peter and Wendy Clackett, of Harwich, Essex, have offered their life savings as a reward for information that helps find Natasha safe and well.

There have been no confirmed sightings of the teenager since she boarded the train at Ipswich.