After reading today about Neville Hobson interview  with an American PR professional, Tony Loftis, and his use of social media to track down his missing 13-year-old daughter who ran away from her home in Boston, I wanted to let him know about the FBI’s new app for smartphones, its first ever, to find missing people. The Child ID app includes a special tab where parents can quickly and easily e-mail information and pictures of  missing child to authorities with just a few clicks.

There is also an Amber Alert app for missing people from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, as well as a Missing News Service app which uses Apple’s “push notification” and location services to provide live alerts of missing person’s within a subscriber’s proximity.

These all sound ingenious and valuable search tools in the most literal sense, and I wonder if these apps are being used, or developed for use, by police and missing people organisations in the UK.

And I sincerely hope that that Tony’s search for his daughter Allie, believed to be in New York, will soon have a successful outcome.

In memory of those who are still missing.

This is what Gary, who has been working as an English teacher in Thailand and has been missing for more than 10 years, wrote:

Hi, I am shown as missing on the following link

http://www.khaosanroad.com/missingpersons.htm

I am still stuck in Thailand and dearly wish/need to be in touch with my family – urgently.

I emailed Gary and he wrote back saying:

I haven’t been in touch with my family for about 10 years.  My father Richard would be about 64-ish now and if still alive would probably be on the Isle of Wight.  I also have a sister, but no idea where she may be.

At the moment I am stuck in Thailand with *very* low funds and a long long overstay on my visa.  For the past few months I’ve been trying to locate my father, and anyone else in my family, but absolutely no leads.  Finally i came across the missing report of myself! ~ What a shock!   …but it seems that the guy who was looking for me, Alan Rosseti, is perhaps no longer in business.

I wasn’t sure if Gary’s communication was genuine, or whether it was from a hoaxer claiming to have news for Gary’s family – for  a price. I asked him for further details about himself and this is what he wrote:

My father worked for British Aerospace on the Isle of Wight.  Several months ago I contacted a lady there – Julia.James@baesystems.com – several times, and was told that he had already retired and that there was a fellow who still worked there who knew my father personally and would pass my contact info on to him.  I never heard anything further.

I am at quite a low point in my life at the moment so assumed that my father/family simply didn’t want to be in touch with me – then I came across the missing persons report for me!  So, it seems, wonderfully, that I was wrong ))

However now I can see no obvious reason why my family has not been in touch other than my father has died – even then it would seem to be very odd that someone has not been in touch with me.

Hmmm…. quite baffling.

My mother was a hospice nurse. She passed away many years ago.  My father since re-married.

I also have a sister but have no idea where she may be. My sister’s name is Mandy (changed perhaps to Mandie) Spencer.

I went to Cowes High School.  In Thailand I worked primarily as an English teacher (Japan prior to that).  I would imagine, logically, that the simplest and fastest way to get in touch with my father would be via contacts at British Aerospace, Isle of Wight – even though it proved fruitless for me.

Please keep me posted.  Once again, I am quite desperate here.  A million thanks.

This is the message posted by Alan Rossati, who appears to be a private investigator. Two emails I sent to him were returned undelivered, so it is no longer a live link and he is unable to help.

This case is a tragic reminder about the countless families around the world who still have no answers about missing loved ones. How must they feel when their case runs cold, when police stop searching, and they never learn what happened to a child or relative who seemed well and without worries one moment, and then suddenly vanishes without trace.

It’s crucial that families know the outcome – however devastating – so they can grieve and say ‘goodbye’. Joanna’s heartbroken father, father David Yeates, explained why:

“In truth we feel like we hope … we would be relieved if it was her. We don’t want to go to our graves wondering where she is and not being given the chance to say goodbye to her. We assume that she’s dead so we’d like to say goodbye … our lives have gone.”

Never knowing the fate of a missing loved one is an unbelievably hard cross to bear, never having a body recovered if the worst has indeed happened.  We all know about dear little Madeleine McCann who was snatched while on holiday in Portugal in May 2007; despite world wide media coverage and extensive police searches, nobody knows for sure what happened to her – except the wicked perpetrator.

Another baffling missing person case I have highlighted is that of a glamorous British ex-pat living in Hong Kong, Carole Day, the widow of a judge, who vanished three-and-a-half months ago while on a business trip in Manila. A further sinister twist has developed with the murder of a man who was reportedly involved in the same furniture business as Carole. You can read the comments on this post to learn more.

The disappearance of Joanna Yeates highlighted the importance of the vital specialist expertise of the National Policing Improvement Agency which helps find missing people, but is being axed due to government cutbacks.

In memory of those who are still missing.

Also, why not play it and see if you recognise any familiar faces, why not Share the Joy ….

The charity has issued a statement saying:

“This is a critical time for missing persons. As it stands, government funding cuts mean that, in one blow, the entire national investment into missing persons could cease, and critical services lost. This includes the work of Missing People, which searches for and supports tens of thousands of people each and every year.

“With your help, we can ensure that Missing People can long continue to be a lifeline when someone disappears.”

Missing People provides a desperately needed lifeline when someone disappears by providing support to those affected by missing persons. Last year, its staff and volunteers took over 114,000 calls for help from runaway children, vulnerable adults and their families. It provided emotional support for more than 900 families, and helped to close almost 340 missing person cases. Sadly, however, more than 1,000 cases remain open.

Each year 250,000 people run away or go missing. For those left behind, the heartache is unbearable.

Where else can these can these people turn to if their worst nightmare becomes reality?

In memory of those who are still missing.

*I’ve just emailed my excellent MP James Paice asking if he can attend this important debate tomorrow and support Missing People.

Chief Constable Peter Neyroud, the NPIA’s chief executive, explains how vital their work is: “The NPIA is the centre of expertise for the police service in cases of missing people. There are around 1,000 cases of unidentified bodies across the country, dating back more than 50 years. We are trying to create stories with endings for families who may still be grieving. It is extraordinary how many people know someone who has gone missing. Most of them return but many do not and these stories have no endings.”

Who is going to provide an ending to these tragic stories if the NPIA is axed? The vital work this agency does has a considerable impact on the lives of those who are desperately searching for a missing person, like Valerie Nettles, whose son Damien went missing 14 years ago, and says: “That leaves families like mine back in limbo again, without focus, support, direction, hope. There is more hope for a lost puppy with the support of the RSPA than there is for my lost boy and others like him?”

A Facebook campaign has been launched to save the agency, and supporters are asked to write to their MPs objecting to the cutbacks. This is a letter they are urging people to copy and forward to their MPs:

The NPIA Missing Persons Bureau is the national and international point of contact in the UK for all missing and unidentified cases and is the entre for information exchange, knowledge and expertise on the missing.  It provides an integrated service for missing adults and children. People who go missing can travel extensively, crossing borders on a regional, national and international level.  There is a real need for a national operational unit to manage both missing children and adults.

Currently, outside of the smaller NGOs, there is no support for parents of children abducted into the UK and little available to parents of children missing abroad, having the NPIA Missing Person’s Bureau has enabled smaller NGOs to get additional governmental department services so rightly deserved in these cases.

The Bureau also has strong productive links with related groups and charities, including Forever Searching.  It has provided a platform to bring these smaller NGOs together to share and exchange information and advice, and more importantly to give the families and friends of missing loved ones a voice through these organisations.

Let us highlight for you the risk and the impact that closing of the NPIA Bureau would have on the issue of missing people.

• patterns of missing indicating crime and harm going unnoticed

• long term unresolved cases

• unresolved suspicious and murder cases

• duplication of effort trying to resolve these cases and safeguard individuals

• inconsistent and impeded response to cross-border cases

• inability to improve and disseminate good practice

• failure to resolve cases using other national services such as the national Missing Persons DNA Database, Missing Persons Dental Records file and the National Fingerprint Database

• lack of oversight of joined up multi-agency services

Again, let us highlight for you the risks of splitting the services offered by NPIA into other agencies:

There will be confusion around responsibilities in various cases involving adults and children who go missing together and children who turn 18 whilst missing. There will be significant difficulties regarding those aged 16-25 years.  This age group is vulnerable as they are in a transition period between childhood and adulthood, i.e. information and advice drop in service Check-Point provide services for young people up to the age of 22. http://www.torbay.gov.uk/checkpoint  Young people who are cared for in the care system are eligible for support until they are 25.

Separating missing children and adult police co-ordination will have a negative impact on the police response.  We believe that the Missing Persons Bureau is essential to link missing persons cases and link victims of murder who have been reported missing.

Missing people are known to travel large distances; this is especially true in cases of parental abduction.  Our charity has much experience in this area from its support to families and friends.  A national service like the NPIA is needed to resolve these cases.

Without a national Bureau working to resolve both missing adult and child cases we have great concerns that the impetus of the recent Taskforce may be lost. Some of the issues identified by the Missing Persons Taskforce include:

• Lack of public understanding on the issue of missing people.

• Data collection is poor.

• Responses from multi-agencies are not co-ordinated.

• Roles and responsibilities of all agencies are not clear

• Levels of support to families of the missing is not sufficient

Further details on these recommendations to improve the multi-agency response to missing incidents are set out in The Missing Persons Taskforce report.  http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/Missing-persons-taskforce.html

Supported by smaller NGO’s such as ourselves and Missing Abroad, the group Family and Friends of the Missing have been calling for additional support to people caught up in this nightmare situation.  This resulted in EDM1119 which subsequently came to nothing.  We urge you to continue the work of the NPIA Missing Person’s Bureau within the new National Crime Agency.  Strong links to the charitable sector are also needed to provide the necessary support and comfort to the families left behind.

The most important issue for families and friends is to have a unified, structured and supportive Governmental body working to in this field to help find those who are missing.

We would respectfully request that the services provided for missing people are not compromised by the re-structure of police services and the phasing out of the NPIA.

You can find your MP here, please write him the above letter. I shall.

Please read here the 14-year agonising search by Val Nettles for her missing son Damien.

In memory of those who are still missing.

We were an ordinary family, doing ordinary everyday things as life hummed along in a comfortable hum-drum way.  Then one night, my 16 year old son went out with his friends one wet windy cold night in November in Cowes on the Isle of Wight and he never came home.  Never heard of or seen again….Damien will have been missing 14 years and it is still incredible to me that we still know nothing.  It is incredible I cannot hold him, touch his face, and laugh at this silliness. In a blink of an eye all that changed.  I miss him more than I can ever put into words and it hurts deep in my soul.

All we know is what we pieced together after we realised he was missing, his movements, who he spoke with, and more importantly we see him on security video in the local chip shop surrounded by strange men and again on CCTV on the High Street walking alone, eating chips without a care.  It is the ‘not knowing’ that is the worst.  We know nothing so imagine ‘everything’ that could have happened.  We don’t feel he ran away as there were no signs, reasons that he would want to and he had his chance if he wanted to the week before.

I think the attitude of the local police when we reported our son missing woke us to the realisation that it was down to us to look for him or what happened to him.  With that in mind, we proceeded and still proceed to find out information, which we have related to the police in the hopes they could further the inquiry.

Over the years I have done numerous appeals on television, radio, newspapers, and magazines.   I co-organised The March for the Missing in March 2008 in London with Nicki Durbin, mother of missing boy Luke Durbin, to help raise awareness for the issue of those who go missing including getting a bill passed to help assist the families left behind to cope.

The formation of the NPIA (National Policing Improvement Agency) in 2008 gave me hope that finally the Missing issue was getting the support and attention that it needs with the national Missing Persons Bureau, overseen by an official organization, and the national clearing house for missing person cases and the only DNA center in the UK to help identify unidentified remains.   More recently the Government implemented a Task Force to look into the phenomenon of the missing issue.  Imagine my shock, and the shock of other families and friends of missing and lost people that the Government intends to scrap the NPIA.  That leaves families like mine back in a limbo again, without focus, support, direction, hope.  There is more hope for a lost puppy with the support of the RSPCA than there is for my lost boy and others like him.

What do I have for my missing son and where to I go for help?  Why am I clawing to find my son, why are countless other families in the same situation?  We are on our own.

On the 14th anniversary we are renting a billboard in the busy town of Newport, Isle of Wight.  Yet again the family and friends pull together to’ get something done for Damien’.  The billboard will feature a picture of Damien and brief description of Damien and will include the Crime Stoppers phone number.  Over the years we have done whatever we can to keep Damien in people’s minds on the Isle of Wight and further afield and support has been incredible.  We feel that something happened to him there and that someone knows.  Maybe now people have grown up and have families of their own, they might begin to understand how we are feeling about our lost son.

In memory of those who are still missing.

Carole, 56, who is from Stoke and a 5ft 4ins strawberry blonde, went to the Philippines on a business trip and was staying at The Corporate Inn. She was intending to fly to Thailand on the 11th/12th September from Cebu, but did not arrive at her destination and has been completely out of contact since the 12th. She was due to arrive back in Hong Kong on 15th September for a number of important events, including a funeral.

The latest post on facebook is a message from Jai saying he is en route to Manila.

Let’s hope and pray that Carole is found safe and well.

A message on the site says: “At present we believe it is likely she is still in the Philippines (Manila or Cebu). Any details no matter how seemingly trivial will be greatly appreciated. Please contact her son, Jai Day, at any time.”

Jai’s contact details are: +(852) 9633 3071 jaicool@hotmail.com.

Update 24 September: Carole, who is 56,  works in interior design and the furniture business and was travelling to Thailand to close down a showroom. She is a former long distance runner and model. It doesn’t appear that she caught her flight. Please read the comments for more details reported in the South China Morning Post.

The person who alerted me to Carole’s disappearance said she is the mother of a friend, and that I had previously written about another friend who had gone missing in Cambodia, Eddie Gibson.

The London Standard reports on Carole’s disappearance.

In memory of those who are still missing.

Nicki fears the worst and tells the East Anglian Daily Times that police should be investigating a murder inquiry:

‘“I never in my wildest nightmares imagined that four years on I would know no more today than I did when I first called police. It’s impossible to put into words the desperate life you lead living with a missing child. Your imagination becomes your worst enemy.

“In the first couple of weeks of Luke’s disappearance I feel that grave mistakes were made in the investigation. Assumptions were made about my child and time was lost. That window was crucial. For over three and a half years I have believed that Luke is no longer alive and that something sinister happened. I am 99% sure he is dead. I have asked Suffolk police to turn Luke’s case into a murder inquiry but they have refused – saying it is detrimental to his case as a missing person and that there is no murder scene or suspect.

“I will have no closure until Luke is either found alive or his remains are discovered. I will not stop fighting to find answers unless I physically and emotionality can’t do it any more. There has to be at least one person out there who knows what happened. I really hope their conscience gets the better of them. I beg anyone with information to come forward.”

I’m not sure what happened to the Early Day Motion proposed by Tory MP Ann Winterton in 2008 urging the Government to provide support for families of missing people. Ann Winterton was proposing that a Missing Persons’ Bill should be introduced which would provide counselling for families, as well as helping them achieve widespread publicity. I hope our next government will be sympathetic to their unique plight and support them.

The Missing People charity estimates 210,000 people are reported missing each year, it desperately needs more funding to help support families. Please read this link for some heartbreaking stories about missing people whose families I met on a march in London two years ago to raise publicity.

*At long lost a child abduction alert system will be introduced throughout Europe on May 25, similar to Amber Alert system which is successfully used in America when children go missing and are abducted. I hope all parts of the UK will be fully prepared for this too. And credit should go to Kate and Gerry McCann who have campaigned tirelessly for such a system to be introduced since their daughter Madeline disappeared in Portugal in May 2007.

The way it is planned to work is that regional and national television and radio stations will broadcast messages, in some cases interrupting scheduled programmes. It is hoped to eventually use internet and text messaging as well as motorway information signs. The system is being co-ordinated by the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) and any national abduction investigation will be led by Greater Manchester Police. I would like to see signs at ports, airports and railway stations too.

The alert system is being launched on May 25 to mark International Missing Children’s Day and is the result of funding from the European Commission.  Some countries, including Portugal, Spain and the Czech Republic, have already linked with the pan-European network.

Police say that by establishing a powerful partnership between the police, media and the public, Child Rescue Alert allows information about the child and the suspect to be shared in just a few hours of a disappearance when the criteria for such an alert are met. These are often the vital hours which could literally mean the difference between life and death. This alert system is long overdue and I’m sure it will prove vital in the safe rescue of abducted children.

In memory of those who are still missing.

Jaycee Lee Dugard was on her way to school when she was pulled into a stranger’s car just a block away from her South Lake Tahoe home. Her stepfather said he heard her scream and saw a man and a woman drive the terrified girl away in a grey car.

Exhaustive searches drew a blank until the 28-year-old woman revealed her true identity in tiny Antioch, a suburb of San Francisco.

Carl Probyn, Jaycee’s stepfather, said he had given up hope of seeing her again.

"Then you pray that you get her body back so there is an ending. To have this happen where we get her back alive, and where she remembers things from the past, and to have people in custody is a triple win. It’s like winning the Lotto."

Police have taken two people into custody in connection with the abduction of the woman, who is now 28.

If only all these tragic stories could have the same happy ending…

In memory of those who are still missing.