CLAUDIA Lawrence's mother will suggest in a TV documentary on Tuesday night that the missing York chef might have been sex trafficked to Holland via Hartlepool.

Joan Lawrence's comments come in an interview for the 'Claudia Lawrence: Missing or Murdered' programme about the disappearance in March 2009 of 35-year-old Claudia, of Heworth, which will be broadcast on Channel 5 at 9.15pm.

The documentary says there was speculation in 2012 that Claudia had been trafficked to Amsterdam after a private detective claimed to have seen her there, but it questions how she could have journeyed there without her passport, which was found in her home.

Mrs Lawrence says she 'had heard there was a white slave trade going on' and says that a man from York, who had gone to live in Hartlepool, had contacted her to say he was convinced he had seen Claudia down by the town's marina.

"He recognised her from living in York," she said. "He told me there were boats going to Amsterdam daily from Hartlepool, and she could have been on one of them."

The programme says Dutch police checked out the Amsterdam speculation and found no trace of Claudia.