Family asks public to look out for son

PATRICK HAMILTON/Nelson Mail

TRY HERE: Charlotte Lipp, of Nelson, right, has been briefing volunteers on areas to explore in the search for her missing son. Volunteers Dave Mackay and Bridget Mulcahy are in the background.

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More than 30 friends and helpers were out searching today for 19-year-old student Leo Lipp-Neighbours, who went missing from Nelson a week ago.

His anxious mother, Charlotte Lipp, said: "I just want to find our son."

As word went out over the weekend about the search, friends joined to scour the highway and back roads from Queen Charlotte Sound across to Golden Bay and down to St Arnaud, Murchison and the Lewis Pass. Three helicopter searches paid for by the family have also been made.

Ms Lipp said they were looking in all her son's favourite places.

He was last seen leaving his Watson St flat at 4am last Sunday after being with friends at the Phat Club in Nelson.

"I have no idea what's happened but the most likely scenario is he hopped into his car and started driving. He loves driving. He'd had a bit to drink and he would not have been that alert, and I imagine he would have gone off the road and has not been spotted yet.

"It's really important we still believe he is alive. We're not giving up."

Ms Lipp said her son had not been happy the night he went missing. A mechanical engineering student at Canterbury University who had successfully completed his first year, he did not want to go back this year.

"He likes doing things and studying mechanical engineering was good but also dry and boring. He was torn between study and doing practical things."

He was building a motorised buggy and had been keen on the project, so it did not seem likely that he would leave it unfinished, she said.

She described her son as bright, intelligent and creative. The former Nayland College student has built miniature engines for radio-controlled cars for an American company.

She said he was not under pressure to return to university. "We had talked a lot. We thought it would be good for him to do at least another year but we said we would support whatever he decided."

She said her only son thought deeply about life and people. "He's at that age where he's just worrying, 'What's the point?'.

"You ask yourself, did you miss something? He knows that we love him."

Ms Lipp, who is German, has lived in New Zealand since 1988, and said she had split with her husband, Colin Neighbours, but Leo spent time with both of them and loved to go sailing on his father's catamaran.

Ms Lipp appealed to the public to keep a lookout for her son, last seen wearing blue jeans, a yellow T-shirt and brown shoes, or his orange Toyota Corolla stationwagon, registration NQ7258. He has not accessed his bank account or used his cellphone since he disappeared.

In tears, she said: "We so need a clue so we know where to look. It would be terrible if he was lying somewhere suffering.

"Maybe if someone is driving, they might see something that looks a little suspicious, if they could just stop and have another look. It would just be so good to get that clue."

Senior Constable Dave Colville, of Richmond, said: "He's just disappeared. We thought his car would have been seen by now. We hope farmers, forestry workers, mountainbikers will keep an eye out."

Anyone with information should contact the police.

- © Fairfax NZ News