Families of missing people to call for more support

The government is being urged to improve support for the "heartbroken" families of people who go missing.

The UK's first parliamentary inquiry into the issue will look at what campaigners say is a "complete gap" in help for those affected.

Among those giving evidence later will be three mothers of missing children, including Kate McCann, whose daughter Madeleine disappeared abroad in 2007.

The inquiry will make recommendations to the coalition government.

As well as Mrs McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, the inquiry will hear from mothers Sarah Godwin, whose son Quentin was 18 when he went missing in New Zealand while on his way to an after-school job in 1992, and Nicki Durbin.

Mrs Godwin said her son could be anywhere, but has strong roots with England because she is from England and he was very close to her English parents, who have since died.

'Living nightmare'

She told the BBC: "I think it's the connectivity that's really important for the families, or people who are struggling with a missing relative, not to have to search around and work out who to talk to."

She said Quentin had left behind a letter which could be read as a suicide note, and the police stepped in and did "as much as they could".

"It just takes over your life, it becomes an all-absorbing and all-engrossing area of your life," she said.

"You're driving down the road and you're looking at people walking up the street to see if you can see their faces, but it's the long-term that's really the hard road."

She said that, when she meets other parents as the inquiry later on Monday, it will be her first face-to-face encounter with someone in the same situation.

Mrs McCann, whose daughter Madeleine was three went she went missing during a family holiday in Portugal, will tell the inquiry: "When someone you love goes missing, you are left with unimaginable, unending heartbreak, confusion, guilt, and worry.

"In addition to the reassurance that everything possible is being done to find their missing loved one, families need support. And they should be spared the additional pain of financial and legal bureaucracy."

Ms Durbin, whose son Luke disappeared after a night out in Ipswich five years ago, said: "It sounds like such a cliche, but it is a living nightmare. Personally, there isn't an hour of a day that goes by without me thinking about Luke.

"If my house was burgled, I would have got support. And that would have obviously been emotional support, legal support. When I reported Luke missing, there was nothing. And there still isn't anything."

She has been backed by the charity Missing People, which says that after 48 hours relatives should be given support similar to that given to the victims of serious crime.

Registering deaths

Peter Lawrence, father of missing York chef Claudia Lawrence, will give evidence later in the week along with Rachel Elias, the sister of missing Manic Street Preachers guitarist Richey Edwards.

The inquiry will also consider calls to make it easier to register the death of a missing person whose body has not been found. This is in order to sort out their financial and legal affairs.

Courts can be asked to declare someone dead after seven years, although in England and Wales it is not statutory.

Ms Elias, whose brother Richey Edwards went missing in a high-profile case in 1995, says getting a missing person declared dead is too complicated.