PETER Lawrence is convinced his missing daughter Claudia is still out there, somewhere. He can sense it.

“I feel a loss,” he says. “The loss that she’s not around. But I don’t feel that emptiness that I think I would feel if she was dead.”

It is more than eight months now since the 35-year-old York chef disappeared. Claudia has not been seen since March 18. Her disappearance sparked one of the biggest-ever investigations mounted by North Yorkshire Police. There have been hundreds of calls to police hotlines, searches of hundreds of properties, Crimewatch appeals, even a £10,000 reward.

But despite everything, there has been not one real breakthrough.

Mr Lawrence accepts that the police are now treating the investigation into his daughter’s disappearance as suspected murder.

“And I understand why the police are starting to treat it that way,” he says. “But we have agreed to run along parallel lines: the police, on the basis that she has been abducted, harmed and murdered; us on the basis that she has been abducted, probably harmed, but is still out there somewhere.”

It is because of this conviction that his daughter is still alive that Mr Lawrence is determined to do all he can to keep her name and her face in the public eye.

“I see Claudia’s photo everywhere I go,” he says. “On buses, on trains, in shops. I want them to be out there so that people can see them. It’s what we’re aiming for. We want people to keep their eyes and ears open.”

Yes, he agrees, the intense publicity surrounding Claudia’s disappearance has led to false sightings. “But it is worth the odd false sighting to keep the profile up.”

The 63-year-old solicitor from Slingsby, near Malton, comes across as an intensely private, even reserved, man. Yet such is the level of publicity generated by Claudia’s disappearance, he has had to get used to his face being recognised wherever he goes.

“People come up to me and say ‘I’m so sorry…’,” he says. Sometimes, they pry a little too much for comfort. “I try to say thank you and move on, or talk about something else.” But he doesn’t resent the intrusion. It is what he wants, because it suggests people haven’t forgotten about Claudia.

The media have, generally, been very supportive, he says. “Apart from the first two to three weeks when they came knocking on the door, they have been absolutely brilliant.”

But, aside from the police and the media, and family friend Martin Dales, one organisation has been crucial to the search for Claudia: the charity Missing People.

Formerly known as the National Missing Person’s Helpline, the charity was set up following the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh in 1986, and has a website dedicated to helping to find the disappeared.

Visiting it is a haunting experience. The faces of those who have gone missing look out from the screen. Claudia is there, along with a score or so of others from Yorkshire alone: 33-year-old Andrew Bunby, from Hull, missing since January 2007; 15-year-old Genevieve Johnson from Sheffield, missing since October 22 this year: 19-year-old Zhimin Tang from Huddersfield, missing since December 2005.

The charity takes reports of suspected sightings; runs a ‘message home’ service for adults who have disappeared and want to let relatives know they are okay; and operates a ‘runaway helpline’ for children who have run away from home or care.

It offers a support service for families and it can help those families mount the kind of high-profile campaigns that can be so crucial.

Missing People contacted Mr Lawrence not long after Claudia’s disappearance, and arranged for him to appear on the BBC’s national Missing Live programme on BBC1.

He was still feeling raw and grief-stricken. “But I jumped at the chance. Anything to keep Claudia in the public eye. I wanted to do everything possible.”

Mr Lawrence was taken to a BBC studio in London where, for about seven minutes, he talked live on air about his daughter: what kind of person she was, when she was last seen, whether there was any conceivable reason why she might have left home.

He was used to standing up and speaking in court, Mr Lawrence says. “But it is totally different being on TV.”

After that initial broadcast, a TV reporter then followed him back home, for further TV exposure.

That marked the start of the full-on Find Claudia campaign, Mr Lawrence says – and Missing People were vital.

Small wonder, then, that he is urging people who attend The Press’s annual carol service next month to donate to a collection being held for the charity.

The theme of the service, at St Denys’ Church in Walmgate, is Absent Friends. The service, on December 9, will remember not only missing people, such Claudia, but all ‘absent friends’. It will be for people who have been recently bereaved, those whose relationships have broken down, and people separated by emigration; and will also remember members of our armed forces away on active service.

Mr Lawrence will give a reading at the service; he is hoping the event will help to raise the profile of Missing People.

“They are a very busy charity, but they are not well enough known,” he said. “It is amazing how many families they are involved with.”

• The Press carol service on December 9 will start at noon, led by the Rev Allan Hughes. Pupils from St Lawrence CE Primary School will be leading the singing and refreshments will be served after the service.

• All are welcome, but the public is asked to bear in mind the church is small and worshippers should arrive early for the best chance of attendance. Please email the names of the loved ones you will be separated from at Christmas to nicola.fifield@thepress.co.uk by December 7.

• Every care will be taken to collect names faithfully, but The Press cannot be held responsible for errors or omissions.

• If you are not able to attend the service, but would like to make a donation to Missing People, log on to missingpeople.org.uk/supportus, phone 0800 298 7858, or make cheques payable to Missing People and send them to Missing People, 284 Upper Richmond Road West, London, SW14 7JE.

York Press: Missing People charity AS YOU scroll through the names and faces on the Missing People website, you realise just how many people go missing.

The charity is actively working on 6,000 cases: children who have run away; adults such as Claudia who have simply vanished; missing relatives nobody can trace. It estimates that 100,000 children aged under 16 run away from home or care for at least one night each year: every year, 210,000 reports of missing people are recorded.

The ‘missing’ photographs on the charity’s website link to a brief description of the missing person and when they were last seen. There is also a ‘have you seen?’ tag to click on: one of the ways sightings can be reported to the charity.

The charity offers support to the families of those who have gone missing.

“The effect… on family or loved ones can be devastating,” a spokesperson for the charity says. “They can be left angry, depressed, bewildered and often with a sense of bereavement.

“From our experience, we know that people go missing for many different reasons.

“It may be because they feel they have no choice or that their family may be ‘better off’ without them. The act of going missing is often preceded by stressful life events such as trauma, unhappiness, depression, financial worries…. Some people go missing for a day, some for years; some return and sadly, some never do. Some only know they want to be found when they hear that someone is looking for them.”

Missing People has a web-page aimed at runaway children, with a number and an email address children can contact in confidence, to ask for help or just to let families or carers know they are all right.

“Whether you have run away from home because of an argument, bullying, abuse or you’re unhappy… Runaway Helpline is here for you day or night,” the charity says.

The charity also runs a ‘Message Home’ service, which enables adults who have left home to contact family or loved ones. The charity can arrange a three-way telephone call, in which those who have left home can talk to family, with a Missing People representative also on the line.

“These calls cannot be traced to you,” a charity spokesperson says. “In addition, we can give you the opportunity to talk through what has happened and explore options for seeking other sources of help and support.”

• To contact Missing People, call Freephone 0500 700 700 or visit missingpeople.org.uk

• To contact the Runaway Helpline, call Freefone 0808 800 7070, text 80234 or email runaway@missingpeople.org.uk

• To send a ‘message home’ call Freefone 0800 700 740 or email messagehome@missingpeople.org.uk


Missing in Yorkshire

There are more than 20 people from Yorkshire listed as missing on the Missing People website. They include:

Victor Bell, 39 when he went missing from York in March, 2008. Victor was last seen by his family on March 14 last year, when he told them he was going on a camping trip. Police renewed their appeal for information about him in May this year.

Janet Cowley, 46 when she went missing from Scarborough on October 1, 2008.

Gavin Wilson, 28 when he disappeared from his home in Scarborough on February 27, 2006