THE mother of Claudia Lawrence has spoken of how she “lost all respect” for police investigating her daughter’s disappearance, and claimed they were “clutching at straws”.

Claudia, from Heworth, York, went missing in 2009 at the age of 35. Despite it being one of the most expensive police investigations in British history, the York chef has still not been found and police are treating her disappearance as murder.

Speaking to a national newspaper, her mother Joan, of Malton, said she felt police had been insensitive to her during the early stages of the investigation, after she was told her daughter had had “all these affairs with married men”, her flat was searched, and she was questioned on several occasions.

She said: “It was stupid. They’re clutching at straws. I lost all respect for the police that day.

“They seem to think because she was beautiful she had affairs. They could not accept she could have just friends. She had too much self-respect to go with men she knew were married.”

During the investigation, which has cost about £750,000 to date, police consulted a profiler to help them understand Claudia’s character, who suggested she may have suffered from low self-esteem.

Joan told the Sunday Times Magazine that Claudia, who worked at the University of York, “was very good at her job but she had a low self-esteem and never thought she was any good at anything”, and that she still believed her daughter was alive.

Claudia’s friend, Suzy Cooper, also told the magazine she could not quite believe she was dead.

“A lot of my other friends have just sort of accepted that she’s been killed and she’s not coming back. But I can’t fully do that.”

Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway said he knew her parents and friends believed Claudia was alive, and he hoped that was the case.

However, he said: “But — and I say this with a heavy heart – my professional judgement is that she has come to harm. There’s no sign of life anywhere in the two years since her disappearance.”