An emotionally-drained mother is desperately seeking her missing 13-year-old son who disappeared on Monday.

Rosetta Williams said her child, Paul Young, may have run away from home because of ruthless teasing by schoolmates at Campion College in St. Andrew.

However, Ms. Williams is pleading with her son to put that behind him and come home.

"I don't know why he wouldn't want to come home," she told The Gleaner when she visited the company's North Street offices yesterday.

Ms. Williams said that, last Thursday, she received a call from the school informing her that Paul, a first former, had been absent from classes for the previous three days.

Ms. Williams said she was puzzled as, last week Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, her son had dressed and left home for school.

On Thursday evening, when he returned home, the mother said she questioned her son about his whereabouts. That is when, said Ms. Williams, she heard about a teasing game that occurred at school.

Ms. Williams accompanied Paul to school on Friday and Monday and, this week in the presence of her son, she also spoke with the dean of discipline at the institution.

Last she saw him

Monday morning was the last time she saw him.

"On Monday he said to me, 'I cannot face the class,'" said the mother of three.

Principal Grace Baston corroborated the mother's story and said the interest of the school is to have the child returned home.

"Teasing is always happening at the school. We do so much to have it stopped," said Mrs. Baston.