As the search for missing University chef Claudia Lawrence enters its secondyear,Henry James Foy talks to man whose faith in her return never wavers.

no hint of fatigue in his voice.He understands how important a

constant media presence is for his cam-paign, whatever the personal sacrifices.

“The whole idea of the campaign isto keep the media interested, and theyhave been exceptionally good. There is afair amount of time taken up by mediaeach month, but it’s not an intrusion.We want them.”

It is startlingly evident how muchPeter has resigned himself to acceptingthe double-edged sword of the media.Throughout, he has striven to maintain

their interest, at whatever cost. Indeed,this very interview is a result of a needto keep Claudia in the headlines.

“There isn’t really anything in thesense of people knocking on the door,thankfully, ever since the first two orthree weeks. They don’t come knockingat my door, they knock at his instead,”he adds, pointing to his friend and cam-paign spokesman Martin Dales.

Dales is evidently at the heart ofPeter’s enterprise. He deals with thepress, schedules interviews and main-tains the campaign website, www.find-

claudia.co.uk.Dales tells me that there were 40

calls to the BBC during the recent pro-gramme, the most calls for any episode,with viewing numbers above 4.2 mil-lion. On Thursday 18th, exactly a yearafter his daughter disappeared, Peterwill again be on television, appearingon the BBC’s Missing Live programme.

It is almost crass to speak of view-ing figures and audience response inthe face of this sad story of a missingdaughter, but Peter knows well thatthese are the statistics that might make

On the afternoon of 18 March2009, 35-year-old ClaudiaLawrence began set off from the

University to her home in Heworth. Ayear later, the Roger Kirk chef has yetto be seen again.

After months of intense mediacoverage, local awareness and the oneof the largest investigations in the his-tory of North Yorkshire Police, the trailis cold. Claudia has disappeared with-out a trace.

One man who has no intention ofgiving up is Claudia’s father, PeterLawrence. We meet in his house nearMalton, in a sleepy hamlet where thehorrors of a missing daughter seem amillion miles away.

“I didn’t think we would be here ayear on, I never thought we would, butwe are, so we have to keep the cam-paign going,” he says in his soft,metered voice.

“We just need a result,” he adds.His has been a year of hurt, a year ofhope and dismay, a year of personalsacrifice, a year of confusion and mostimportantly, a year of constant belief.

Throughout the past 12 months,hopes have been raised as the policehave released seemingly fresh informa-tion, and conducted intense investiga-tions. All have, without exception, beendashed as officers follow them tonowhere. In April, after five weeks ofsearching, Detective SuperintendentRay Galloway, leading the investiga-tion, announced the commencement ofa murder investigation, but haveadmitted they have no evidence for herdeath.

Peter has watched and waited ashomes have been searched, hundredsof friends, colleagues and acquaintanc-es have been interviewed and officershave travelled as far as Cyprus andIreland in search of some missingdetails in Claudia’s life.

The investigation caught themedia’s attention, throwing the 62-year-old former solicitor into the lime-light of the national press – a role hehas carried solely on his shouldersthroughout – and leading to a spate ofscurrilous tabloid media stories regard-ing her love life, causing great distress.

Yet his faith, nor continued efforts,never waver: “There is a general per-ception that there is a bit of informa-tion somewhere, that at the moment ismissing. We just need it.”

Peter begins by telling me that he’sfeeling jaded. It has been a “fraughtweek” with media interviews: a weekbefore we meet, a fresh lead had beenreleased by the police after Peter’sappearance on the BBC programmeCrimewatch. Like all the others, itwould ultimately come to nothing.

“It’s important that there were somany responses to the programme. It’sheartening that people keep respond-ing to the publicity. It shows that itreally does work,” Peter says. There is

ClaudiaLawrence, pic-tured here withher father, hasbeenmissingsince March 182009

A father’s anguish16/03/10 MM55