Police searching for four missing teenagers who disappeared on a camping trip in north Wales have found the car they were travelling in.
Jevon Hirst, Harvey Owen, Wilf Fitchett and Hugo Morris are thought to have been travelling in the Harlech and Porthmadog areas of Gwynedd, North Wales police said.
They were last seen on Sunday morning in a silver Ford Fiesta, registration HY14 GVO, the force said in a missing persons appeal posted on Facebook.
North Wales police said that following information from a member of the public, officers searching in the Porthmadog area had located the vehicle.
They confirmed that police officers and colleagues from other emergency services were at the scene, and the families of those involved have been kept updated.
A police cordon has been erected near the village of Garreg, five miles northeast of Porthmadog.
The Welsh ambulance service said it was called to an incident near the A4085 between Nantmor and Tan-Lan in Gwynedd just after 10am on Tuesday.
“We sent an operations manager, two emergency ambulances and two Cymru High Acuity Response Units to the scene where we were supported by the Emergency Medical Retrieval and Transfer Service in two Wales Air Ambulance charity helicopters,” it said in a statement.
Crystal Owen, Harvey’s mother, told the BBC she was travelling to north Wales to help with the search operation. She said she was unaware her 17-year-old son was going on a camping trip and believed he was going to stay at a friend’s grandfather’s house.
“I am frantically worried, we haven’t slept a wink, we are desperate to chase any lead we can,” she said. “If I’d have known [where he was going] I wouldn’t have let him due to the winter weather conditions. They are all sensitive, intelligent lads and we are just hoping they parked up, got lost and are OK.”
She said her son, an A-level student at Shrewsbury college, had not been active on WhatsApp and she believes that the last time the group used their phones was at about midday on Sunday from Porthmadog.
Owen added that she wanted to follow up on a lead posted on Twitter in which someone reportedly saw someone dragging a tent to a car parked on a hill on Sunday afternoon in the Felinheli area.
Mountain rescue teams searched car parks for the missing car on Monday, and a coastguard helicopter searched the area around Porthmadog and Harlech at about 4.45am on Tuesday.
Lisa Corfield, who said her daughter Maddi was Wilf’s girlfriend, told the Shropshire Star: “They all went to north Wales camping on Saturday night and they were due home on Sunday morning but they never returned.
“Everybody is sick with worry and have not heard anything from them, which is very unusual for them. They have been trying their phones which must be either off or with no battery”
Chris Lloyd, the chair of the Ogwen Valley mountain rescue team, said they spent Monday searching car parks for the group’s vehicle but there was no specific search area.
Meole Brace school in Shrewsbury, which all four teenagers attended, said: “Jev, Harvey and Wilf left us last year at the end of Year 11, and Hugo the year before. All four boys were well-thought [of] and well-known by the school community, Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families for their safe return.”
Shrewsbury college confirmed all four were currently A-level students there.
“The college’s immediate thoughts are with the family and friends of the teenagers missing.
“This is a very worrying time, and we all want them to be found safe and well,” it said in a statement.
• This article was amended on 22 November 2023 to correct the surname of Wilf Fitchett, who was initially named by the police as Wilf Henderson.
