Every year in Britain thousands of people go missing.
One famous East Sheen charity has the daunting task of finding them. George Cooper hears tales of discovery.
Caroline Monk froze when she read the email. For a few minutes, she sat shaking. Then she composed herself and rang her mother. “Mum, they’ve found him.”
Monday, May 9th 2022 is a day Caroline will never forget - the day her missing brother, Gary, was found safe and well after 17 years.
The email that changed Caroline’s life came from Missing People, the charity based on Upper Richmond Road West, whom she contacted in December while trying desperately to track down her sibling. “I can’t believe they found him,” Caroline says. “I have my brother back and my mum has her son back.”
Back in December, Missing People were Caroline’s last hope. Together with her sister, Tania and their 77-year-old mum, Carol, she had spent almost two decades trying to find Gary.
In fact, her story begins even before that, at her family home in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in 1988.“Growing up, I never knew I had a brother,” says Caroline, who works for a children’s charity.
“Mum fell pregnant in 1964 and was sent to a home in London for unmarried mothers. When she was 19 she had a baby boy who was taken away from her for adoption after just six weeks. She then married my father and had me and my sister.
“One day, when I was 19, the phone rang at home. My mother was almost frantic. The man on the other end of the phone had asked her: ‘Would you like to speak to your son…?’
“Mum came upstairs and told me everything. I was in floods of tears realising I had a brother. We waited for the phone to ring. When Gary called, it was just wonderful.”
For a few blissful years, Caroline and Gary were back in each other’s lives. She took him to meet her friends at the pub and they wrote to each other regularly.
But, in 2005, life took a traumatic turn when both Caroline and her mother were diagnosed with breast cancer – an illness they would both beat but which put an enormous strain on the family.
Shortly after Caroline broke the news to Gary, he disappeared without a trace. “We just had no idea what to think,” Caroline says. “We didn’t know if he was dead or alive. It was a terrible time. But I was determined to find him. I told my mum: ‘Whatever else happens, I promise I'll find Gary.’”
“Mum came upstairs and told me everything. I was in floods of tears realising I had a brother. We waited for the phone to ring. When Gary called, it was just wonderful.”
For years they tried all sorts of avenues to find him, to no avail, until they came to Missing People.The charity is the only organisation in the country dedicated to helping missing people and their families. In the UK, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds, and 170.000 are reported as missing every year. Of those, nearly 98,000 are adults and 70,000 are children.
Missing People was founded by sisters Mary Asprey OBE and Janet Newman OBE after the high-profile disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh in 1986. Lamplugh was an estate agent who went missing, aged 25, after attending a property viewing in Fulham.
She was officially declared dead, presumed murdered, in 1993.
In light of her disappearance, the sisters realised there was no way of searching through an organisation for missing people, and set up a helpline from their flat. In 1993, they registered National Missing Persons Helpline as a charity. Missing People is run by staff and volunteers, providing free, confidential support to anyone affected by a missing person.
Kirsty Hillman runs the lost-contact tracing service, re-launched in 2019. Working alongside third parties, she helps families whose cases the police either aren’t involved in or have closed.
In the UK, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds, and 170.000 are reported as missing every year. Of those, nearly 98,000 are adults and 70,000 are children.
When Caroline contacted Kirsty in December, she had little hope of finding Gary. The only information she could provide about her brother was his name, date of birth and last known address from 2005.
Much of the work Kirsty and her organisation does is confidential. Missing People are bound by strict GDPR laws so they cannot try to find someone through telephone calls, emails or in-person visits to addresses. They also cannot pass details between family members.
They are restricted to using data – by all accounts, it seems an impossible job. For Kirsty, it is pure detective work.
“It’s surprisingly easy to disappear, if you think about it,” Kirsty says. “There are not many ways to trace someone if they are not particularly visible - on social media, for example. For me, that means hours of sifting through data.
“Typically, in these cases, once we have an address, one of our partners will forward a letter from us. Even then, we have to be careful we are not tracing people who are choosing not to be in touch, so we are reliant on them replying to that letter.”
Five months passed while Kirsty combed the data to try to locate Gary. She kept in regular contact with Caroline and her family via telephone and email.
“It’s surprisingly easy to disappear, if you think about it,”
For Caroline, though, these were dark, depressing times, plagued with grief and uncertainty of not knowing what had happened to her sibling.
“We had given up,” Caroline says. “There were a lot of tears. We thought Gary had died and we kept checking obituaries. But Kirsty kept reassuring us she wouldn’t stop looking.”
Finally, in May, came the news Caroline had dared not dream of. Kirsty had found her brother. While Caroline and her family still do not know why Gary chose to disappear - but the relief and joy of having him back and their lives is enough for now as they chat via email.
“We tried for years to find him and we would never have known if he was even alive without Kirsty and Missing People – we can never thank them enough,” she says.
“We are having lovely chats, keeping it light and letting Gary gradually tell us about all the years we have been apart. We know from conversations he has been through some very dark times so finding each other now could not have come at a better time.
“It feels like we lost him twice and found him twice.”
“We tried for years to find him and we would never have known if he was even alive without Kirsty and Missing People – we can never thank them enough,”
While Caroline and Gary’s tale is unique, Kirsty says each case brings its own challenge and each family she helps reunite brings its own reward. “I’ve been doing this job for three years and I still get surprised by cases,” she says. “It can be really emotional.“Some days I am really impacted and it’s tough when you really want an outcome for a family and you’ve come to the end of the tracing without one.
“I’ve had to be the messenger of losses and of rejection and that’s hard. But I also get to pass wonderful news, in cases like Caroline’s, and to feel a part of that is fantastic.
“My message to families would be to try not to leave it too late. If there is a possibility of positive reconnection, life is short, and I would go for it.”
For help, advice or support or to pass on information about a missing person, you can call or text Missing People, confidentially, on 116 000 or email 116000@missingpeople.org.uk. Calls and texts are free. For further help and information or to donate, visit www.missingpeople.org.uk.
