Photo: West Midlands Police

Sheila Fox was 16 years old when she went missing in 1972 in Coventry, a city in central England.

At the time, the West Midlands Police said she had been living with her parents. It believed she could be in a relationship with a man and added that she had possibly moved out of the region.

A grainy photo of Fox, taken around the time of her disappearance, was posted online by the force on Sunday in an attempt to generate leads.

Within hours of the photo’s publication, members of the public reached out and provided information about Fox, the West Midlands Police said.

The details they gave enabled the police to track down Fox, who they described as “safe and well and living in another part of the country”.

The development brought one of the force’s longest missing person searches to an end.

Detective Sergeant Jenna Shaw, from the West Midlands Police’s Cold Case Investigation Team, said: “We're absolutely delighted to have found Sheila after more than five decades.

”We searched through every piece of evidence we could find and managed to locate a photo of Sheila."

“We are a small team of officers, and I'd like to recognise the work of DC Shaun Reeve, who managed to resolve this case with help from the public," Shaw said.

”Every missing person has a story, and their families and friends deserve to know what happened to them and, hopefully, be reunited with them.“