As SKY TV prepares to show a programme on missing children, that will include the disappearance of a former Cardigan schoolboy from his Gwbert home nine and a half years ago, his mother has made a fresh appeal for her son to get in touch.

Jerome Thomas (15) left his home Mandalay in Golf Club Road for a walk at around 1.30pm on New Year’s Day 2001 and has not been seen since.

He was believed to have gone for a walk along the cliff tops wearing a navy blue tracksuit bottom with a stripe, a dark coloured fleece top, a white baseball cap and grey trainers.

There were a number of reported sightings of the schoolboy, including one of him hitch-hiking at the hospital roundabout in Cardigan on the day he went missing and one of him in Portugal, but his parents David and Heather Thomas and their other four sons Mathew, Ben, Sam and Josh have not heard from him.

Jerome would have been 24 on June 18.

SKY is filming in the area next week for the programme that is to be screened in August featuring 12 missing children in the UK.

Making an appeal to her son his mother said "We want you to know that we are still here for you.

"After so many years have gone by we want you to know that there is still a place here for you.

"Perhaps you think that what you’ve done is unforgivable, but that is not so and we want you to come home more than anything," she said and added that the whole family was still totally convinced that Jerome was still alive.