‘Claudia Lawrence did not have 40 lovers’ - Dad (From York Press)

‘Claudia Lawrence did not have 40 lovers’ - Dad

8:38am Monday 26th October 2009 in

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THE father of missing York chef Claudia Lawrence has hit back at claims she had dozens of lovers, saying he had met most of her boyfriends.

Peter Lawrence, 62, said he had often gone for Friday night drinks with his 35-year-old daughter and her partners at a local pub.

He said he knew many of them were married, but dismissed rumours that she had had 40 lovers.

“My daughter was nothing like she has been made out to be,” he said.

“I knew most of her boyfriends and she didn’t have time to have dozens of them. The suggestion by one of her so-called friends that she had 40 lovers was especially hurtful.” Mr Lawrence said Claudia, of Heworth, had not wanted to be involved with attached men, but said: “These things happen. There was no malice in her intentions.

“From what I understand, she’d had no more than 15 lovers in five years. I do not believe she went around choosing married men – perhaps she just wanted a little bit of excitement in her life; something different.”

Police are treating the University of York chef’s disappearance as suspected murder, but Mr Lawrence has refused to give up the search.

He said: “I still believe she is alive and have always thought she has been taken against her will. She would never have wandered off – she was not that sort of girl. She would not have left her job or her house, left her mortgage unpaid or her possessions untouched. I have to believe she is still out there, she is still with us and one day she will come home.

“She is the first thing on my mind when I wake up each morning and the last when I go to bed at night. And then there is a point every day when I think about the fact she isn’t here.”

He said police were no closer to finding her now than on the day she vanished, despite quizzing hundreds of people and checking out numerous leads and reported sighting across Europe.