Police believe they are growing closer to finding teenager Stacey Champ and the 46-year-old man she went missing with.___
Police said on Sunday the pair had bought a red Volkswagen Golf on Fiday, for �300 from a private dealer on the outskirts of the Lancashire resort.
The discovery was made after the person who sold them the car - with the number plate J804 LLD - contacted police.
Inspector Richard Watson, leading the investigation for Kent Police, said that with every new piece of information "the net was closing in" on the pair.___
They said the pair seemed like "an ordinary couple" and did not attract any attention.
A cleaner, who gave her name only as Lena, said: "I could not believe it when they said she was 14. She looked a lot older than that to me.
"I served them breakfast on the Friday and they seemed absolutely fine. She did not look like she was being held against her will or anything like that."
Another woman who saw Stacey and Mr Milner in Blackpool said she believed them when they introduced themselves as a married couple aged 22 and 37.
"She struck me as being quite immature for 22. She was holding his hand and giggling and she seemed quite lovestruck actually. ___
Inspector Watson said the couple had told the man from whom they bought the car that they had come for a holiday from Bristol, having arrived in a taxi.
He said: "We're very keen to trace this vehicle... I would urge everybody to just look out of the window - is that car sitting in your road?"
A white van belonging to Mr Milner's employer - Beach Communications - and thought to have initially been used by the pair, was found at a Temple Meads railway station in Bristol.
Inspector Watson said police presumed they had headed for Blackpool from there, by train.
British Transport Police were carrying out forensic analysis of the vehicle. ___
Inspector Watson said they did not believe Stacey was in danger, but wanted to reunite her with her mother.
BBCNews 31 August, 2003{Watson! For the sake of all that's holy! What in blazes were you thinking?
See there's a surplus of funding in England, now that all the really endangered kids are all taken care of and everything. Now that the front-line organizations have more than they need to get their jobs done, see they have this extra so they can spend what? 100,000 pounds? more? Probably more when you factor in man-hours and all the 'volunteer' energy. But you know, a mother's heart, have to honor that. They figure the kid's safe and doing what she wants to do but Mom needs to know for sure and the real clincher is she's too young to know what she's doing. But do they have a test for that in England? Why is it OK to take advantage of someone who doesn't know what they're doing if they're over 16, or is it 18? 17? in Alabama it's 16. But really it should be, what, 21? 40? Maybe you should have to get a sign from 'God' in order to get married. Like a real demonstration of its moral rightness, one of those sudden clearings in the sky, a sunbeam on the path ahead, the rain stops, birds sing, a distant choir that everyone hears but no one can explain. Or maybe just maybe the people who are enforcing this nonsense are delusional and sexually ill. Maybe.}
