AN official from the United Nations has launched a search to find the grown-up child he left behind in the North-East three decades ago.

Thirty years ago, 20-year-old Joe Uttro left the North-East for Africa. A few years later, he moved to the US.

He did not realise at the time, but the girlfriend he left behind was pregnant -and gave birth to his child several months later.

Mr Uttro, who is originally from Nigeria, has spent the past 30 years wondering how his son or daughter was getting on as he forged a new life in the US.

In 1975, Mr Uttro was in the Nigerian Army and was sent to Catterick Army base, in North Yorkshire, for training with 8 Signal Regiment. From there, he made regular trips into Darlington, where he and another soldier became friends with two local girls.

One of them, called Sue, became Mr Uttro's girlfriend. He said: "We fell in love and dated for a while. Upon my completion of duty, I returned to Nigeria where communications were not as clear.

"The last correspondence I had with her, in 1976, was that she has had a baby and I was the father. I was 20 and I did not know what to do. I wrote back to her, but I do not remember what I said.

"My goal was to get a real career and I hoped we would hook back up again."

Mr Uttro is now 50 and is married with three children.

He works at the UN in New York, and said he has been trying to find Sue and his child, who will be about 30, for the past five years.

He said: "I have made exhaustive efforts to try to locate them, but to no avail.

"I have been to England and done a local search. It has always been at the back of my mind. I have looked on the Internet and in the phone book. I was so desperate, I phoned the chief of police in Darlington, but they could not help me because of privacy issues.

"I have a baby out there and I just want to meet up. I do not even know if it is a boy or a girl."

Mr Uttro has a daughter called Jessica, 20, from his first marriage and two children with his second wife, Susan -Joshua, a baby, and Stephanie, ten. He said: "I have often imagined what the child would be like. I am tall and black, so the child would be racially mixed."

Sue would be in her late 40s now. Mr Uttro said the pair spent a lot of time with one of her friends, who was married to a truck driver called Brian.

He said: "I want to say hi and meet up with them. I want the child to know he or she has a relative in America."

The Northern Echo has omitted Sue's full name, and anyone with information has been asked to call the paper on (01325) 505022.