A BELOVED family cat who disappeared for weeks has been reunited with his frantic owners after boarding a school bus.

When ginger tom Charlie went missing from the Harwood Road area of Rishton, owners Rick Baines, 37, his partner Claire Duerden, 37 and her 21-year-old daughter Sapphire spent evenings walking the streets searching for him.

They also contacted animal rescue centres, the RSPCA and distributed leaflets and posters.

More than two weeks after last seeing him, the family were resigned to never seeing Charlie again.

Rick said: “We rang some slightly further afield vets and one in Clayton told us that a cat matching his description had been handed in that morning by the driver of a school bus.”

Kate Sheriff-Blay, the veterinary nurse at Town and Country Vets Clayton-le-Moors, who looked after Charlie, said: “A driver with a bus full of school children on his way to St Christopher’s in Accrington came in with the cat.

“He said some of the kids had found him on the bus, and he handed him in”

Sapphire Duerden said: “We’re so thankful to the driver and the vets for helping him.”