THE father of missing teenager Becky Stuart spoke today at his relief that she had been found safe and well.

Becky, 14, a student at Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School, in Waterfoot, went missing on February 12 from her home in Campion Drive, Helmshore.

On Thursday, her father, Roy, received a text message from his wife, Karen, to say Becky had been found in Nelson safe and well.

It has been agreed that Becky stays with her best friend and school pal with her family in Todmorden.

Roy said: "It is heartbreaking for me because I am torn between a rock and a hard place. If I insist she comes back home she is just going to leave again. At least this way I know where she is.

"As soon as I got the message I excused myself from the meeting I was in at Blackpool and got back home in record time.

"We have spent weeks not knowing what had happened to her -- if she was alive or dead. I was just so relieved."

Becky had been staying with a man in Waterfoot for the first two to three weeks and they had then moved together to a house in Nelson.

The man is to be interviewed by police.

Roy said: "I spent a couple of hours with her at the police station, but she was not very communicative and was looking down a lot and just answering 'no' or 'I don't know.' She refused to come back home and said she didn't want to live with her step mum, but Karen has been great with the girls and she has no reason to feel that way towards her.

"So we have agreed for her to stay in Todmorden with her best friend and her family have agreed to keep us informed if anything happens."

He said the last few weeks had been terrible for the family. Becky has two older sisters who attend Haslingden High School, Emma, 18, and Lisa, 16, and two step-brothers, John, four, and Christopher, two.

Roy said: "Before all the troubles Becky spent a lot of time with the boys and John really misses her and has drawn lots of pictures of her.

"There was no point bringing her back home because she would only have run off again, which is why we agreed to her staying with her friend."

He said there had been difficulties at home because Becky had been caught smoking, drinking and mixing with the wrong company and she had been made subject to a curfew.

Roy added: "I am hoping she will grow out of it and her attitude will change." He thanked everyone, including the press and the police, for their help in tracing his daughter.