Levi Davis, a rugby union star who appeared on The X Factor: Celebrity in 2019 as part of the group Try Star, has been missing since 2022. 

According to his mother, Julie, the athlete, 24 at the time of his disappearance, was last seen in Barcelona on October 29, 2022, at a pub, and she’s fearful his disappearance is related to a previous attack he suffered.

In a new interview with The Mirror, the mum of six opened up about how Levi had been ‘drug raped’ – with photographs and film from the incident being used as blackmail against him – around the time he was on X Factor.

Levi, who eventually posted on social media that he felt his life was in danger, had been chained to a chair with his feet in water, attached to electricity, according to his mum.

Julie said: ‘The blackmail video was a while before he went missing – around the time of X Factor. I think he innocently got drawn into something.’

Julie’s oldest son Nathan revealed the incident to his mother: ‘Levi had confided in Nathan that he had been drug raped and photographs had been taken and he was being blackmailed.

‘They told him, “We’ve got this on camera and we’re gonna do XYZ to your family if you don’t pay.”‘

Julie explained that she last heard from her son when he arrived in the Spanish city and phoned to tell her he had run out of money and needed £30 to spend the night in a hotel. 

She later messaged Levi – who had played as a winger for Bath and appeared on The X Factor: Celebrity with fellow players Thom Evans and Ben Foden three years earlier – asking if he’d found the money for the hotel. She never heard from her son again. 

She was later told that cruise ship workers had helped ‘someone in the water shouting for help in English’ shortly after Levi was last seen.

However, when the area of water was searched, nothing was found – all that was uncovered during the police investigation was Levi’s passport.

Levi was last seen on CCTV leaving The Old Irish Pub on La Rambla at around 10 pm on October 29, and bar staff later told authorities he had only had a couple of drinks. 

He sent a WhatsApp message to a friend shortly after midnight before going dark, the Mirror reports. 

Julie continued to the publication: ‘Levi wanted to travel Europe because of his anterior cruciate ligament tear. He’d been in Ibiza for a couple of weeks to work on music, and he said he planned to stay at a hotel in Barcelona overnight before going to his next destination, which was left open. But he had run out of funding.’

The devastated mother has been left with unanswered questions, including uncertainty as to why her son’s phone last pinged by a port-side underground station. She was left with even more uncertainty when the Spanish police eventually sent her a 250-page report that she had to get translated to English herself.

Julie is now crowdfunding to be able to hire a solicitor to continue to work on her son’s case, saying, ‘As far as the UK police are concerned, we’ve just been totally forgotten.’

West Midlands Police say of Levi’s case: ‘The investigation is being run by the Spanish authorities, and we are supporting it when required. Our thoughts remain with Levi’s family and we will continue to provide them with any updates from the Spanish authorities as their investigation continues.’

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The mother of a boy who vanished 17 years ago has said her ‘heart has been ripped out’ as police put up a £10,000 reward.

Alex Sloley was 16 in 2008 when he went missing from his home in Islington, north London.

There were no signs suggesting Alex, a college student, was planning to run away, as he had no money or extra clothes on him.

His mother Nerissa told Metro she has been living in agonising ‘limbo’ since the Arsenal living teenager went missing.

She said: ‘My heart has been ripped out, I’ve been living in limbo for all these years.

‘I don’t think Alex is going to come back, but there’s always a slim hope.

‘If anyone knows anything, please come forward, please help us. Maybe after all these years, someone will be in a different position in life and can tell us something, especially as now there is a reward.

‘He went out and never came back.’

Of her son, who has two sisters, she added: ‘He is lovely, a family boy.

‘He loved Arsenal, was very good with numbers and has a bright future ahead of him. No family should have to go through this.

‘There was nothing I knew of to explain his disappearance.’

Detectives are offering £10,000 for anyone with information that could help to find him, treating Alex’s disappearance as an active missing person investigation.

Alex is described as a light-skinned Black man, 5ft 5ins tall and of medium build with striking blue eyes.

Former detective Mick Neville reviewed the case and drew parallels with the case of Andrew Gosden.

Andrew disappeared aged 14 after getting off the train at King’s Cross station in 2007.

Neville told Metro after the reward in Alex’s case was offered: ‘I hope it makes a difference. No parent should be put through what these go through.

‘There were some very unsavoury characters around the area and it’s just s gut feeling but there could be a connection between the disappearance of Alex and Andrew Gosden.’

Alex, an accountancy student at City and Islington College. had little money, no wallet and no bag with extra clothes to indicate he was planning to run away, police said previously.

Nerissa was left in tears in 2019 when the police released another e-fit of her son.

She said he looked like his father Christopher, who died in 2014 without ever finding out what happened to their only son.

Charity Missing People found previously that missing Black children are less likely to be found by police compared to white and Asian youngsters.

The ‘heartbreaking’ report found that a lower proportion of missing person cases relating to Black children were solved by the police following Freedom of Information requests to the UK forces.

Missing People charity said: ‘Alexander, we are here for you whenever you are ready; we can listen, talk you through what help you need, pass a message for you and help you to be safe.’

Anyone with information about Alexander can contact the Met by calling or texting on 07860 369603, while anonymous reports can be made via independent charity Crimestoppers.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Suzi Maltwood was having a busy day at work when she saw her brother Shaune’s name flash up on her phone.

Instead of picking it up, she let it ring out, vowing in her mind to call him later. But, by then, it would be too late.

‘The last time I heard from Shaune, he’d been very reliant on me,’ Suzi tells Metro.

‘He hadn’t been well with his mental health, so we’d been speaking almost daily. But that day I was making up hours at work after taking time off to support him. Now I live with an unbearable amount of guilt.

‘Every day I wonder if I’d just answered the call, “would Shaune have never gone missing?”.’

There have been no clues over the last seven years since his disappearance on June 21 2017, as to what happened to him. There are no bank records, GP appointments, or work records. 

Shaune hasn’t used his driving licence or passport, and Interpole confirmed to his family that he hasn’t appeared to have left the country. Police investigations into his disappearance have yielded on results. 

Despite his mental health struggles Shaune had been positive about his future. Then 45, he was busy as manager of several London-based businesses – including a cleaning company.

He lived in Eltham, but the father-of-five loved to visit the Isle of Sheppey – an island off the northern coast of Kent – with his two dogs or for holidays with his family.

The last sighting of Shaune before his disappearance that summer’s day was at a caravan park in the village of Eastchurch on the island, where he’d travelled to sell a van.

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‘He was always a happy-go-lucky type of person and absolutely loved his children and granddaughter. He had a passion for flashy cars,’ remembers Suzi, 42.

‘Many years ago, I would have been sick of hearing about his cars, but now I would do anything to talk to him about the latest BMW Sport.’

For the first few days of Shaune’s disappearance, it didn’t quite feel real for his family.

‘I remember thinking “what if he isn’t going to come home?” but I would just brush it off,’ remembers Suzi. ‘It wasn’t until a week or so into Shaune’s disappearance that the panic really set in.

‘I find it hard to describe exactly how it felt because it was like having your life turned upside down, but amongst all of the panic and worry, I’ve always had hope that one day he will come home.’

Following his disappearance, Shaune’s family searched homeless shelters, had his face printed in the Big Issue and frequently shared missing poster on social media. Suzi still posts his picture on Isle of Sheppey Facebook pages in case she can jog someone’s memory. 

She’s been left desperate for closure on what happened to her brother and how he potentially spent his final day.

Growing up, the pair were like ‘mates’, rather than bickering siblings, adds Suzi. It was a bond that continued well into adulthood, as the pair remained close.

‘Shaune and I were inseparable as children. I remember us doing everything together, and whenever hr left the house without me, I’d always be waiting with excitement to see him when he came home,’ she recalls. ‘We never lost this closeness over the years and I’d do anything to get it back again.’

After so many empty years, she understands the search may seem fruitless in the eyes of others.

‘What keeps me going is knowing that Shaune would do the same for me,’ she explains. ‘He would never give up and neither will I.

‘I will fight every day to keep my brother in the public eye so that there are as many people as possible helping me to search. The pain never goes away, it just gets harder every day not knowing if he’s even alive. 

‘Over the years Shaune has been missing, it’s been a huge struggle for us as a family. I’ve been living without my brother, my mum’s been living without her son, his children have been growing up without a father. 

‘We need closure so badly that we are considering having him declared deceased when it reaches seven years of him being missing.

‘Neither his children nor granddaughter understand what went wrong,’ adds Suzi. ‘Our mum is really struggling with Shaune being gone and believes that she’ll never know what happened to him in her lifetime. Every day is a battle to try and find Shaune.’

However, it’s the not knowing that’s the hardest part, she says. ‘It’s a complicated type of grief and something we are still navigating every day,’ she admits. ‘The scariest part is that there’s a chance we’ll never know what happened to him and there’s no closure until we do.’

In 2023, the family had Shaune’s story included in a new campaign by Missing People, after the charity collaborating with Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) on a project called Safe Way Home. 

With one person going missing every 90 seconds in the UK, it’s the equivalent of 40 people in a single rush hour or daily commute. To represent this figure, 40 sets of disappearing footprints were displayed on Platform One at Blackfriars station and were seen by more than 100,000 people every day.

‘The longer Shaune is missing, the harder it is to keep up the momentum of public support,’ she says. ‘I am so grateful for the partnership between Missing People and Govia Thameslink Railway because it gave me a new platform to get a really important, and often forgotten, message out about Shaune.’

Meanwhile, Suzi urges anyone who is going through her similar ordeal, never to give up hope. 

‘Do what you can to keep them in the public eye, so that you’re not the only one searching,’ she advises. 

Anyone who is affected by someone going missing or is thinking of going missing can call or text Missing People on 116 000. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk 

Share your views in the comments below.

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Catherine O’Sullivan has been trapped in a ‘groundhog day’ nightmare ever since her son Jack vanished a year ago.

His bedroom remains the same and the porch light is still on, while the mum-of-two devotes ‘her very existence’ to finding out what happened to her 23-year-old boy.

Jack, an intelligent and high-achieving student, had just moved back home to Flax Bourton, north Somerset, with mum Catherine and dad Alan after graduating from the University of Exeter with a History degree.

The family enjoyed simply existing with each other, going about their separate day-to-day lives working or studying, but coming together on an evening.

‘His brother Ben doesn’t live very far, so we would all meet up a lot, enjoy watching TV together on an evening – I was even trying to convince Jack we should enter Race Across the World together,’ Catherine tells Metro.

However, this idyllic and happy period was torn away when Jack didn’t come home after an evening in Bristol with friends at a house party on March 2 last year.

In the early hours of the morning, he texted his mum at 1.52am declining the offer to be picked up, saying he would take a taxi as he was going to a club.

After leaving the club around 3.30am, the last CCTV sighting of Jack was 10 minutes later, at the top of a busy slip road called Bennett Way.

Jack has not been seen since, although he did appear active on Find My Friends that morning at 6.44am, putting his location as Granby Hill, near the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

None of the belongings he had on him have turned up either, leaving the family in a state of limbo, clueless on how life should carry on.

Birthdays have come and gone and the rest of the world carries on around them, but there is nothing normal about life for Jack’s family any more.

‘I am still stuck on the day he went missing. Everyday is groundhog day for my family, none of us are the same people we were a year ago,’ says Catherine.

‘I wake up each day and go through all the messages we have been sent to see if there are any believable clues as to where my son has gone.’

The majority of messages are hoaxes, she says, which has opened up the vulnerable mum to a ‘type of nastiness she didn’t know existed’.

Yet Catherine continues to expose herself to the fake emails and ransom messages, knowing that she cannot take any information, no matter how small, for granted.

‘It’s a horrible existence, but I have no choice,’ she admits.

Before he disappeared, Jack was intensely studying for his law conversion course. His mum would often tell him to have more fun and make time to enjoy his hobbies, like football and golf.

‘He was a high achiever and he put himself under a lot of pressure. But he was just a nice, caring guy who didn’t care about being the centre of attention,’ she recalls.

In the days, weeks and months that followed his disappearance, Jack’s family would go out and physically searching for him daily. They would climb fences and check ditches, anywhere they could feasibly look for him. Now, they have hired a team of private detectives after the police ‘lost so much important information’.

‘We have been forced to go back to the beginning,’ explains Catherine. ‘There are holes in the police investigation which have made our lives really difficult.’

Missed CCTV in particular has cost them dearly, she says, as three months into her son’s disappearance she was given footage supplied by police which were labelled ‘no longer of value’.

But after sifting through it herself, Catherine found two sightings of Jack – both of which were missed by police. However, as nearly 13 weeks had passed, any footage captured on dash cams and Ring doorbells was gone.

‘It’s really hard to accept that,’ says Catherine, pausing to take a moment. ‘We have just lost so much information which could have revealed where my son has gone.’

Did you see Jack?

Jack has been described as white, around 5ft 10ins tall, of slim build, with short, brown hair.

When he disappeared, he was wearing a quilted green and brown Barbour jacket, a beige woollen jumper, navy chinos and brown leather trainers with white soles.

Assistant Chief Constable Joanne Hall from the Avon and Somerset Police adds: ‘Do you remember what you were doing that cold, snowy day in March 2024?

‘You may recall seeing something which, on the surface, seemed unimportant, but may be an important piece of information for us to know. Do you remember seeing anything on your journey, whether you were walking in the area or travelling on the roads.’

Only recently, the family were told by officers a body had been found on a beach in early January and that it may be Jack. They had to wait six agonising days before confirmation came through that it wasn’t him. It was ‘the worst experience’ they’ve had so far, says Catherine.

‘It’s been particularly hard on Jack’s older brother Ben. They were very close, and watching him become lost in Jack’s disappearance has been so hard to watch,’ she adds.

When asked what she thinks happened to her son, Catherine says she and the family firmly believe Jack is alive, and got into a car before vanishing.

‘I can’t not think he is alive, otherwise surviving each day would be impossible,’ she explains. ‘We wake up and find something to cling onto to keep going.’

In his last known movements Jack was seen trying to hail a taxi in a busy area, which didn’t pick him up. He was then seen signaling to another car – potentially thinking it was another taxi – and hasn’t been spotted since.

‘The last physical sighting of my son was him walking up a busy slip road, and 15 vehicles drove passed him,’ Catherine says. ‘Someone must have seen him, but because he just got into a car it didn’t seem out of the ordinary, so they don’t remember.’

Although she says police insist Jack must have entered the water, Catherine believes they are basing this on statistics rather than actual evidence.

‘Missing person cases are generalised, but every one is individual,’ she adds.

‘We are put into the same box as other cases, and that he has either gone into the water or he has chosen to go missing.

‘But we just don’t believe that to be true.’

Avon and Somerset Police told Metro: ‘On Saturday 4 January, we contacted Jack’s family to inform them that a body had been located at Stout Bay, in Wales. Detectives worked with colleagues at South Wales Police, who led on the investigation, and requested the DNA process be fast-tracked to identify the remains as soon as possible and provide answers to the family.

‘During the six-day period, the Superintendent overseeing the investigation made contact with the family on several occasions to provide what update we could. We were able to provide the family with an update on Friday 10 January after receiving an update from our colleagues in Wales, where we confirmed the remains were not Jack’s.’

The police probably thought I was dead when they found me that day in April 2018. 

Tired of driving around aimlessly all day, I’d pulled over into a layby and laid down for a nap in the car.

The next thing I knew, a policeman was knocking on the window. I heard him tell his colleague to stand back as he reached into his pocket, presumably for something to smash the window with.  

I wound it down before he could, but I had no idea what to say.  

After all, what do you say when you’ve gone AWOL for a day, your name and photo splashed across local newspapers in a missing person’s appeal?

The policemen asked if I was OK and I nodded, my eyes filling with tears of shame and embarrassment. 

They didn’t ask why I’d gone missing – I wouldn’t have been able to explain it anyway – and simply took me home in their police car.  

Pulling up outside my house, I felt a mixture of emotions – anger at my husband Mark for reporting me missing (I’d only been missing for the best part of a day), shame at how low I’d sunk, and fear for the future. 

I know now that severe personal and professional burnout led to that moment, but you don’t always see it happening at the time. 

My path to going missing began a year earlier. I’d been promoted to the manager of a new department at the university where I worked. It was what I had been aiming for, but it meant a lot more responsibility and pressure. 

I rose to the challenge initially. I realised I enjoyed making important decisions and feeling like I was in a respected position, so I put my all into it. But when Mark and I decided to get married in December of that year, I soon found myself juggling work with wedding planning.

Add to all that raising two young children, you could say life was already pretty stressful.

Soon we were also getting ready to apply for our eldest’s primary school place and weknew our address would influence where he went. Mark and I wanted him to attend a school near where we both worked, so we realised we would have to move – and quickly. 

I’d always considered myself a good multitasker, but suddenly the thought of managing a house move alongside my demanding job, the kids and wedding organisation filled me with dread. 

My days consisted of frantically ferrying the boys to and from nursery before and after work, followed by evenings of wedding planning and house hunting. I was mentally exhausted, but even when I finally went to bed, I couldn’t sleep as my to-do list raced constantly through my mind.

After our wedding that December, some of the pressure lifted. Then we found the right house and prepared for the move. However, my nerves were still on edge.  

My performance at work started to unravel and I became very defensive with colleagues, feeling like my abilities were constantly being questioned. As a result, a month after we were married, I was signed off work with stress and depression.

I tried to take back control by applying for other jobs and I was offered a new role with a different company. Though it was less money, I’d also have less responsibility – a trade-off I was willing to make to try to preserve my mental health. 

Come March, I was relieved to hand in my notice and we moved house at the end of the month. But without giving myself time to recuperate, I started my new job straight after finishing the old one.

After just one day I realised I’d made a huge mistake. I felt completely detached from everything and the next day, rather than going in, I sat outside in the car park. 

When I went home I admitted to Mark that I felt overwhelmed with anxiety and guilt and we deicded I should ring my GP in the morning for an emergency mental health appointment.  

But when I woke up the next day, on 11 April 2018, I was in no state to call the doctor.

I felt like I was no longer in my body. I was completely disengaged from my life – I didn’t know who my family were and everything felt wrong. 

I refused to contact the surgery and Mark was, understandably, furious that I’d gone back on my promise to get the help I needed. But I didn’t care. In fact, I didn’t feel anything. I just wanted to disappear… so I did.

Pulling on my shoes, I grabbed my car keys and walked out of the house leaving my purse and phone behind. The last thing I heard as I shut the door behind me was Mark shouting at me to stay. I ignored him.

I drove aimlessly around my local area all day and I only stopped every now and then to lie down or sob. At one point I even thought about taking my own life – it was a comforting idea – but thinking about my family stopped me.

Around dinner time I was woken up from a nap by the police, who took me home.

I explained to Mark that I had just wanted to escape all the feelings of failure and the weight of expectations for a while. I also admitted to the thoughts of ending it all.

Eventually, after a lot of talk and tears, I agreed to get the real help I needed.

I started counselling and was prescribed medication and I also had a long discussion with Mark about delegating more household responsibilities to him and letting go of control. Truly, every little thing has helped.

I’ve since returned to my love of writing and started a copywriting business. I’ve also learned what my signs of deteriorating mental health were so I know if it begins to happen again.  

Of course, I’ll never forget that day – it was my rock bottom. But with working mothers 28% more likely to experience burnout than working fathers, it’s clear this is something we as a society need to get a handle on.

Now I want my fellow working mothers to know it’s OK to get help. I failed to spot the signs before it was too late but you don’t have to. 

This article was first published February 8, 2024.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

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It’s every parent’s worst nightmare, turning your back for a second and losing a child in that instant.

For most, it’s a heart-dropping moment soon replaced by a wave of relief minutes later. However, for the Lee family, the anxiety has never ended after their toddler daughter Katrice vanished from a shopping centre in 1981.

‘She was two-years-old when she went missing,’ Richard, Katrice’s father, tells Metro. ‘What kind of child was she? She was very mischievous, she could be cantankerous. There was a five-year age gap between Katrice and her older sister Natasha, but they absolutely adored each other. 

‘I remember the pair of them playing hide and seek one day. Katrice had hidden behind some big, long curtains but her little feet were poking out. We could clearly see her, but she thought she was invisible. Natasha came in and joked “Oh, I can’t see Katrice, I’ll go look somewhere else”. She was very protective of her younger sister.’

Katrice and Natasha lived with parents Richard, from Hartlepool, and Sharon, from Portsmouth, at a British Army base in Paderborn, Germany, where their father served as a sergeant in the 15th/19th King’s Royal Hussars. As a forces family surrounded by other Brits, there was a strong sense of community in the apartment block where they lived.

When Katrice turned two on November 28, 1981, her family gathered in Paderborn to mark the occasion and planned a tea party later that day. They sang Happy Birthday at breakfast, then Richard drove Sharon, her sister Wendy and Katrice to the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) shopping complex in nearby Schloß Neuhaus.  It was the final payday before Christmas and the shopping complex was full of people. Richard waited in the car as the others headed in.

At the check-out, Sharon remembered she had forgotten to grab crisps and forged a path back through the throng of shoppers. Wendy saw Katrice, dressed in a blue duffle coat worn over a pinafore dress and red wellies, toddle along after her mother. But when Sharon came back, Katrice was not with her. Joined by other shoppers, Sharon and Wendy shouted out the youngster’s name and checked every aisle. 

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Initially, it was unclear whether the Royal Military Police (RMP) or the German Bundespolizei should lead the investigation, which meant vital time was lost. Witnesses left the supermarket and employees finished shift before interviews began and border staff were not informed of the incident straight away, despite the fact Paderborn is just two hours away from the Netherlands and Belgium.

The RMP, who did eventually take control of the investigation, seemed convinced Katrice, who did not speak any German, had wandered off towards the River Lippe which stretched past the NAAFI shopping complex, possibly to see some ducks there. The Lee family disagreed. Katrice didn’t like water – she didn’t enjoy baths, for example – so it would not make sense for her to approach a loud and fast-flowing river.

‘We were accused of clutching at straws,’ sighs Richard. ‘I don’t think every avenue was explored or that the family’s wishes were respected. The RMP closed ranks and we’ve got nowhere.’

Richard served in the British Army for 34 years and gained medals for his efforts. In interviews after Katrice vanished, his voice never faltered and he stood steadfast in front of cameras. But behind closed doors, it was a different story.

He explains: ‘When Katrice went missing we had two bathrooms. I would go into the smaller one and cry my eyes out. Then I’d wash my face and come back out as a “brave soldier” in the eyes of anyone else. I’d been brought up where a man couldn’t be seen to show his emotions. If I did get upset, my dad would say “I’ll give you something to cry about” then put a hand over my head.

‘That stayed with me. From the outside, I was in control. I would nod, smile and cover my feelings. But I was hurting badly on the inside, my mind was not my own. 

‘I also turned to the drink. I would go to work drunk, my mind wasn’t my own. At one point I made plans to end my own life and decided where I would do it, the underground car park in the block of flats where we lived. But I managed to climb out of that pit. I realised I had a job to do. I needed to find out what had happened to Katrice, I couldn’t let her down.’

One theory which keeps Richard up at night is that his daughter could have been taken and raised by a different family elsewhere in Europe. This is bolstered by the fact that, in 2017, it was revealed a man with a green saloon car had been seen with a girl who matched Katrice’s description in the carpark of the NAAFI shopping complex the day she vanished. 

Richard, 75, explains: ‘We later found out there was a lucrative trade going on with people selling children to the east. I also heard about nuns in Italy who were selling children in the 1980s.

‘All of this came to light years later but these avenues weren’t explored by the police. Ultimately what we’ve had since day one is a lack of honesty and clarity. I still want to know who, in 1981, had decided Katrice had gone into the river. Was there any proof?

‘I just wish the police had tried to join the dots from day one, not from 36 years later.’

In 2000, Katrice’s case was reopened under the name ‘Operation Bute.’ The same year, Crimewatch aired a reconstruction of the disappearance on what would have been her 21st birthday in November. A suspect was arrested, but later released without charge.

An anonymous woman left a curious message with Richard and said ‘look for your daughter in France’, but nothing came of this.

In 2012, the Royal Military Police admitted mistakes were made during the first investigation and, for the second time, the case was reopened. The River Alme was pinpointed as an area of interest, due to information that revealed a green saloon car – like the one seen at the NAAFI shopping centre on the day Katrice vanished – had been seen in the area.

Five years later, in 2017, an e-fit of a man police wanted to speak to was released. The following year a team of military personnel and civilian forensic experts announced they planned to excavate a stretch of the riverbank along the River Alme. There was hope in 2019, when a person in Swindon was arrested ‘in connection with the disappearance of Katrice Lee.’ But the man, a former serviceman, was released without charge two days later.

‘The family was never given enough updates,’ Richard says. He divorced from Sharon in 1989 but they remain united in their search for Katrice. He adds. ‘During the River Alme search in 2018, police found bone fragments which went away for analysis. Sharon and Natasha were walking on eggshells for about six weeks, but I was convinced it wasn’t Katrice.

‘DNA revealed that they actually belonged to a horse. But we didn’t find that out from the police, they posted the information on Twitter before they told us. We got phone calls from friends which let us know the bones weren’t Katrice’s. It was two hours later that a police liaison officer called to inform of us the news and apologise for yet another c***-up.’

In 2020 the RMP made the decision to cease active investigations into Katrice’s disappearance.

Through decades of frustration, the Lee family have received support from charity Missing People. Natasha, who sewed a button from one of Katrice’s cardigans into her wedding dress when she got married, has worked closely with the charity to keep her sister’s name in the spotlight.

‘Before, there had been nobody we could talk to about what we were going through,’ Richard, who was discharged from the Army in 1999, adds.

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‘The charity has been a huge support, we bow to their expertise. Natasha brought Katrice’s case to Missing People and they helped get coverage on Channel 5. We both fundraise for them, I sell car stickers and t-shirts.’

Richard hopes to meet Sir Keir Starmer one day to discuss his daughter’s case.  In May 2024, he travelled to Downing Street in an attempt to hand his service medals back to the British Army in protest over the handling of his daughter’s case. Outside Number 10, he posed in a black t-shirt with Katrice’s face on it with the words ‘STILL MISSING’ above the photo. Richard was told he could not hand back his medals as they were classed as personal belongings.

Later that year, he and Natsaha travelled to Germany and the exact spot where the little girl vanished from. There, a photograph exhibition called ‘Missing Katrice’ took place, as the NAAFI supermarket is now an art gallery.  He hopes to one day find answers as to what happened to his daughter.

‘My aim is to get answers. It’s as simple as that,’ says Richard, who lives alone. ‘I’ve never lost hope, hope is eternal. It’s the last thing any family with a missing child has. Hope never dies.’

An MOD Spokesperson said: ‘Our thoughts and sympathies remain with Katrice Lee’s family. If anyone has any new information relating to the disappearance of Katrice, please contact us on 0800 616 888.

‘The Defence Serious Crime Unit assumed primacy of the investigation in 2022 into the disappearance of Katrice Lee and we continue to appeal for new evidence.‘

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk 

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When a person disappears, a domino effect of action begins in an attempt to find them and bring them to safety.

Posters are put up, appeals shared and articles written. More often than not, the person returns home after they realise how much they are missed. But even when that happens, their ordeal doesn’t end there.

‘Going missing might seem like a big part of someone’s journey, but coming back can be just as complex,’ Josie Allan of charity Missing People, tells Metro.

Missing People is a charity that offers support to those affected by a disappearance or those who are thinking of going missing. Allan explains: ‘When people do come back from being missing they can be really traumatised. That could be due to underlying issues that caused them to go missing, assault experienced while they’re away or from suicidal thoughts. In our research, it’s pretty profound how many people have either thought of harming themselves or been harmed by others while missing.’

As well as searching for those who disappear, Missing People explore why people vanish in the first place, both in their own research and through interviews with those who do come home.

With missing adults, 8 in 10 had diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health issues, for example. Relationship breakdown, dementia, financial problems and ‘escaping violence’ are also among the other reasons people left home. 

Sign up for the Metro Lifeline challenge in support of Missing People here

Meanwhile, more than half of missing children experienced conflict, abuse or neglect at home before they left, and 1 in 7 who took part in return interviews with Missing People had been sexually exploited. Children who go missing from care are likely to vanish repeatedly, the charity has also found. When appeals are made for their whereabouts more than once, commentators online can turn to ridicule.

Josie, who has worked at Missing People since 2012, says: ‘We do see judgement, not so much on our Missing People posts but on appeals shared by police. People make assumptions, assume the disappearance is the fault of the person who has vanished. They don’t always think, “that’s a real person. That’s a 14-year-old who has gone missing three times this month, there must be something wrong here.”

Josie has also spoken to families who have experienced racist backlash online after their loved one disappeared. Some were left too anxious to do any interviews in the media as a result of this online response. ‘The court of general public judgement can be brutal for any family we deal with. But there is definitely an additional layer of racism which ethnic minorities face.’

Research by Missing People and charity Listen Up this year revealed that Black children are disproportionately likely to go missing, and that they also stay missing for longer than other children. 

‘The highest profile missing person cases only include white people which suggests that resources aren’t very used for Black people,’ one young person told researchers. Diligent media reporting and swift police responses are integral to ensure missing people are treated equally, the study concluded.

Missing People want to make sure the voices of missing people are heard and represented. Josie recently spoke to a woman left ‘frustrated’ by the police response to her disappearance during a mental health crisis. Meanwhile, a man who went missing explained to Josie that he had been overwhelmed by the publicity in the media about the search for him and was unsure how to deal with the implications of this on his return. All this information is discussed by charity staff and used to shape Missing People’s policy work. 

One example of this work came in 2009 when Josie worked alongside Peter Lawrence, father of Claudia Lawrence who vanished from York in 2009, on the Guardianship (Missing Persons) Act which allows families of missing people to look after their loved one’s affairs in their absence.

The Guardianship (Missing Persons) Act, passed in 2017, gave people the legal powers to manage a missing person’s affairs until their return. It was a nine year battle for Missing People to make the law a reality.

Staff at the charity have also changed the wording they use as a result of feedback from those they’ve supported.

‘There’s certain words and phrases that people don’t like,’ explains Martha McBrier, helpline manager at Missing People. She has spoken to hundreds of children and adults to offer support when they leave home, as well as their families. 

‘Some young people say “I’ve run away, but I’m not a runaway. I don’t like that word.” We want to listen to young people when they tell us things like this, and shape the future of how we respond,’ Martha tells Metro.

Martha has seen a huge uptick in exploitation cases which lead to young people going missing. Children, some as young as 11, in the UK have been lured into County Lines gangs with promises of new clothes or shoes, for example. Criminals target vulnerable children, such as those living in care or from difficult family backgrounds. 

Martha explains: ‘A young person might get in touch and say: “I’ve kind of got myself in a situation with some people, they say I have to go into this place and shoplift, or they’ll kill my sister.” They’re terrified, they’re scared of everyone. These children, they know the thing they’ve been coerced into doing is wrong and they’re worried about the police, school or social services. 

‘Exploitation is a lot more common, unfortunately, among young people who are in care. If you’re going to exploit someone you’re going to pick a vulnerable person to groom. But that’s not always the case. On one call, I spoke to a person who was a teacher and their partner was a police officer. They had discovered their young person was being exploited. It can happen to anyone.’

Moving forward, Missing People has two main goals:

• To reduce the number of children who go missing repeatedly. Currently, over half of all missing children have been missing before.
• To reduce the number of fatal outcomes to missing people cases. Suicide prevention projects such as Missing People’s Suicide Risk TextSafe scheme, delivered in partnership with the Samaritans, which sends a message of support to someone who has disappeared, could make a real difference. 

To underpin these changes the charity wants to see better multi-agency working, led from the top.

‘We want more cross government leadership on the response to missing people,’ Josie stresses. ‘It can feel quite patchy at the moment, as it’s primarily a police response. But that doesn’t necessarily take into account the fact that going missing is an indicator of lots of social issues. We want to see a lot more action and that can’t be done by police alone.

‘There’s a “hot potato” situation about whose responsibility missing people are and that needs to change.’

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk 

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Jo Youle has photographs across her office. Smiling faces – some old, some young – look over as she completes her work. But these aren’t the faces of friends or family, they’re complete strangers.

Jo is the CEO of Missing People, launched in 1986 by sisters Mary Asprey and Janet Newman after the disappearance of estate agent Suzy Lamplugh. The charity has supported families of high-profile missing people such as Claudia Lawrence, Andrew Gosden and Lee Boxell in the years since. Their posters are among the ones dotted across Jo’s office.

‘Having the photos here, they’re a constant reminder of what families go through,’ she tells Metro. ‘Every time I walk up and down the corridor, the faces of these people are with me and on my mind.’

Each year in the UK, 170,000 people are reported missing; that’s one every 90 seconds. 

For six years Martha McBrier has been picking up the phone to missing people and their families who reach out for help. In a soothing Scottish accent, the helplines manager at Missing People asks each one what she can do to support them. 

Metro speaks to Martha just after 10am, by which point she’s taken a call from a distressed dad whose 15-year-old daughter has vanished and a woman who has run away from a hospital’s mental health unit.

‘Calls can be anything from people ringing to say “I want to run away” to “my son has gone missing and I don’t know what to do.”’ Martha explains. ‘Going missing has a lot of different strands to it. We deal with all those strands day to day.’

When someone vanishes, Missing People mobilise support from across the region where they were last seen. With a click of a few buttons, postmen, park wardens and day centre managers get confidential alerts with a brief description of the lost individual. The charity also runs TextSafe, in partnership with Samaritans, which sees a message sent to the phone of someone who has expressed mental health concerns.

More often than not, the missing person returns home after appeals are made.

‘Sometimes they let us know what happened,’ Martha adds. ‘People call and say “they took me to a hospital, I’m not going to run away again.” Young people will send really lovely messages, usually over text. One I remember was, “Thanks for listening to me, nobody else does” with a little “x” at the end.’

When Missing People put out search appeals, the general public can also bolster searches by sharing the charity’s posters or social posts.

After British teenager Jay Slater vanished in Tenerife this summer, conspiracy theories flooded the internet as armchair detectives made jokes about the 19-year-old. Meanwhile the family of Nicola Bulley, who disappeared while on a dog walk in Lancashire in January 2023, were forced to issue a statement to plead with the public to stop speculating about the private life of the missing mum.

‘If there’s not an answer as to why someone has gone missing, that element of mystery is always going to draw people in,’ explains Jo, back in her office.

‘Most of the time that’s to good effect as that’s often how we help to find people. We want the public to become  Digital Search Heroes and to share appeals online. But, we don’t want them to over speculate or make it personal, not when families of missing people are going through such a traumatic time.’

Most adults disappear due to mental health problems. A few choose to go missing – sometimes to escape a stressful situation at home. Ultimately – unless there is a major safe-guarding issue – that is a decision helpline staff acknowledge and respect. Missing People’s most recent campaign is centred on ‘if you’re thinking of disappearing, call us first.’ 

Jo explains: ‘In an ideal world, people wouldn’t feel like going missing is their only choice. But they do. When people disappear they’re cut off from that safety net of people they know and become vulnerable. So it’s important that we can be there to explain how things might work and how they can be supported. Most people actually come back after they’re missing, I think there’s a big misunderstanding about how many people [return home] and are reunited.’

Kirsty Hillman is the architect of many of these reunions. Nicknamed ‘the real Davina McCall’ [in reference to the TV show Long Lost Families], she works on the charity’s Lost Contact desk – reuniting relatives who simply lost contact.

‘We touch on the many different issues that lead to people going missing,’ Kirsty, who previously worked in events, tells Metro. ‘That could be addiction, homelessness or a difficult divorce. Often it’s at a point of change which causes thinking like “I can’t reach my sister to tell her mum has died” or even, “I’ve had a child and I’d love to let dad know he’s a grandad.”’

A stand-out case for Kirsty came over Christmas, when she reunited two brothers, one in London and one in Australia, who hadn’t spoken since 1987. She also points to an experience before Covid, when a son and mother separated by a divorce were brought back in contact after seven years and went on to spend lockdown together.

Kirsty just needs a name, date of birth and last known address to get the ball rolling. Once someone is found, agencies will get to work and a letter will be sent out with Missing People’s contact details. Responses can be varied.

‘Sometimes when we do find someone, they say “no, I don’t want to speak to them ever again” and I will absolutely hear that and reassure them their information is safe and they have the control,’ Kirsty explains. ‘But often there are beautiful, fantastic moments where people are so grateful for another chance to speak to the person they lost.

‘Just this Christmas, we had a man in Australia reach out because his calls to his father in England had gone unanswered for eight months. It turned out the dad had – unbeknownst to the son – been suffering with dementia. He was found on a street with no idea where he was and taken to a care home where he had no visitors. He had told staff he had a son, but they could not track him down. We managed to put them back in touch and that was beautiful.’

The personal connection the Missing People team have with the families they help is evident.

Over at Belen Pavani-Sattin’s desk, thank-you cards adorn the wall behind the call-handler’s phone. Each one is from a family member she has supported; whether it be providing a listening ear, supporting them during an inquest or preparing them for a funeral.

‘We’re not here to give opinions or to judge, we are here to listen,’ Belen, who works on frontline services, tells Metro. ‘When people come to us they are desperate. So I say, “tell me what you need. If I don’t have the answer, I will find it.” Some people might want to talk about their missing person in the past tense, others prefer the present tense. I follow their lead. We want to hold their hand without patronising them and let them know their voice will be heard.’ 

Belen, originally from Barcelona in Spain, is still touched by one moment where a foreign mum who couldn’t find her missing daughter told her ‘you are the only person listening to me.’

As well as their expert staff, Missing People relies on the contribution of volunteers. One is Sarah Allan, who supports nine families of missing people. 

‘A lot of the time at Christmas these families stay at home all day, just in case the missing person ever comes back,’ Sarah tells Metro. ‘And many don’t move house in case they return. There’s one couple I support whose son has been missing for 15 years. They’ve just had a grandchild and that grandchild means the world to them. But they’re so sad that the child’s missing uncle will never know this has happened.’

Moving forward, Missing People want to improve public awareness and unpick reasons which cause someone to vanish. A current piece of research underway investigates how people on the autistic spectrum are more likely to go missing, for example.

‘Missing is a crisis which could happen to anyone,’ says Jo, who was made CEO of Missing People in 2012. ‘But I do have a feeling of hope for the future. Whenever I stand up and talk at an event, people are interested because they genuinely do care.

‘If people donate, whether it’s £1 or £100,000, they do so because they want to help us be there for the missing and those who love them. And we can only do that with people fundraising, donating, playing People’s Postcode Lottery and leaving Gifts in Wills.’

When visitors and staff leave the Missing People office in south-west London, they pass a ‘Messages of Hope’ pinboard full of support from supporters of the charity. ‘Where there’s hope, there’s love, so never give up,’ reads one of the messages. ‘I hope this letter gives you comfort and helps you get through another day,’ says another.

There’s also a large ‘family tree’ in the office with branches stretching across the wall. Families of missing people write on a leaf and leave it in memory of a loved one. There are messages left by the parents of Quentin Godwin; a 19-year-old who vanished in New Zealand; Katrice Lee, a British toddler missing since 1981, and Kevin Mills, a 24-year-old who walked out his family’s home in Peterborough and never returned, to name a few.

Each unsolved disappearance is embedded in the memory of Kate Graham, head of communications at Missing People. She has co-ordinated Metro’s visit to the charity’s offices.

‘I am the mother of two girls, now 27 and 24,’ she tells Metro before we leave. ‘This role has definitely shaped the way I’ve parented them; it’s difficult to work around this subject and not let it interfere with what you do. I have to stop myself from over parenting, even now because I’m so much more aware of all the terrible things that can happen. 

‘But at the same time, I work with such amazing people. It’s a very supportive atmosphere here, everyone is in it for the right reason and genuinely wants to make a difference. 

‘Humanity can be a dark place but there’s a huge amount of good in the world which I’m reminded of every single day.’

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk 

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When Nicki Durbin moved to Ipswich ten years ago, she painted her office blue. It was only when she started to unpack boxes that she realised what she had done. The walls were the exact same shade of blue as those in the former bedroom of her son Luke, who vanished in 2006. 

‘I didn’t do it consciously,’ Nicki tells Metro. ‘I suddenly looked around and saw I had replicated the colour of Luke’s room.

‘I did keep some of his things when we moved, like his guitar. Luke loved music. His most prized possession was his motorbike, which we sold after he disappeared. My dad had said at the time “we can buy him a new one when he comes home.”’ 

Luke, who disappeared when he was 19, never did return to his family in the East Suffolk village of Hollesley. Over the years, there have been rumours of drug feuds, arrests without convictions and years of anguish for Nicki and her family. She is determined to find out the truth. 

‘He always had something smart to say’ 

‘Luke as a little boy was reserved, very intelligent,’ Nicki recalls. ‘It was obvious early on that he was incredibly bright. He went to a tiny primary school in Bawdsey where he thrived and became a lot more social. 

‘Then Luke went off to Farlingaye High School, where his friend circle widened. He was very sharp, he always had something smart to say. Luke didn’t really get into trouble, even when he didn’t concentrate in class, and I think that is because of his wit and the way he could say things to get him off the hook.’ 

One of Nicki’s fondest memories came when at a concert at his high school in Woodbridge. There, an 11-year-old boy had become entirely overcome by nerves and couldn’t tune his guitar. Luke, who was helping out at the concert, dashed on stage to help him without a second’s hesitation. 

Her son’s love of music led him to enroll in a music technology course at Colchester college in Essex. But the long commute took its toll, the teenager would occasionally fall asleep on the train and find himself stuck in London. Luke dropped out in 2005 and, after a series of odd jobs, landed work at a deli in the town of Aldeburgh, 16 miles from Hollesley.

He had a ‘great boss’ and drove a motorbike to and from his shifts. He would often bring home food and make his mum Nicki, 37 at the time, and sister Alicia, 16, at the time, meals.  

Six weeks after landing the deli job, Luke was gone.  

‘We don’t know which way he turned’ 

In the Durbin household on Coronation Avenue, it was common to shout out ‘bye, have a lovely night, love you,’ when someone headed out. When Luke said that to his mother on Thursday, May 11, 2006 she replied ‘don’t drink and drive.’ Those were the last words she ever said to her son. 

Luke had taken Friday off work in anticipation for a big night out on the Thursday, with his friend Alex, a chef in London who was in the nearby town of Woodbridge for a few days. Meanwhile, Nicki and Luke’s sister, Alicia, had enjoyed supper at a friend’s on the Thursday and had gone out separately in Woodbridge on the Friday. 

‘I had a great night,’ Nicki recalls of the bittersweet joy she felt that night. ‘I met Alicia out in town and then bumped into my dad randomly. I remember thinking “Oh, I wonder if Luke is around.”’ Unbeknown to Nicki or Alicia, Luke had in fact vanished. 

On Thursday, the 19-year-old had ridden his motorbike to Woodbridge where he left his phone and wallet at a friend’s flat as he was worried he might lose them. A last minute decision, the group travelled ten miles by taxi into Ipswich and made their way to the Zest nightclub, a popular venue near the  train station. Luke, dressed in a grey sweatshirt, blue jeans and brown suede shoes, got separated from his friends and found himself alone without any money. 

‘I’ve had to watch heart-breaking blurry footage of Luke walking out the nightclub around 2am,’ Nicki remembers. ‘He just stands there for a bit, looking around and clearly trying to find his friends. Two policemen were talking to someone right behind him. Luke then tried to find a way back to Woodbridge. He went to the train station, but there were no trains running. He walked to a taxi firm at 3.40am, where he literally emptied his pockets to show he had no money.  

‘The last CCTV image of Luke was captured at 4am at a zebra crossing on Dog’s Head Street in Ipswich. Of course, we don’t know which way he turned after he crossed. But as he had gone to every other transport place he could think of, it just seemed logical he was trying to get a bus.’ 

Luke’s friends initially thought he may have gone home with a girl after their night out, so weren’t too worried. But when time dragged on and he didn’t return to Woodbridge to fetch his motorbike and belongings, they contacted his sister on Saturday, May 13. Alicia passed on the message to Nicki who called the deli in Aldeburgh and found out he had been a no-show. Knowing Luke would never want to disappoint his boss like that, she realised something was wrong and contacted the police. 

A drug deal gone wrong? 

For the first few months, having no experience of how a missing person case is managed, Nicki had to put her faith in the police. As the weeks turned into months, she felt that the investigation into Luke’s disappearance was not being given the resources needed. After numerous meetings, Luke’s case was taken over by the Major Investigation Team – four-and-a-half years after he went missing. 

Detectives discovered that Luke had done a drug deal in Woodbridge before he met his friends. Ironically, in 2007 Nicki had read on social media site Bebo that Luke was involved in drugs, but her concerns had been brushed off at the time by Suffolk Police. She knew her son had smoked cannabis in the past, but had no clue he was involved in anything more serious. 

One theory suggests Luke owed money and that someone at Zest – which closed down in December 2006 after a man was fatally shot on the dancefloor  – alerted someone dangerous that he was there. Others have suggested he was murdered, or that he was taken to London to pay off a drug debt or that he was picked up by an unmarked taxi. 

‘I’ve had hundreds, thousands of theories,’ Nicki, who works with a local authority , says. ‘I’ve thought of every scenario there is over and over. Sometimes I think it could have been a hit and run. There was a silver Volvo seen at 4.08am, just down the road from where Luke was last seen. I’m sure the driver of that vehicle has something to d with Luke’s disappearance.

‘Luke was picked up on CCTV in the middle of the town centre and then seemingly vanishes. Police found out the car had a false address and number plate.’ 

Nicki had to go back to her work at a lettings agency a week after her son vanished to support herself and Alicia. But outside of work, she poured all her energy into finding Luke. She set up a website, reached out to police and worked with Luke’s friends to distribute leaflets at concerts in Ipswich which attracted young fans: such as the Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers, both bands Luke loved.  

She speaks of wearing a ‘mask’ to carry on despite the hurt she was feeling. 

Reflecting, she adds: ‘I think the police assumed that, because I was working class and a single parent, that I’d go away and leave them alone. But I became a lioness; it’s not about strength when your child vanishes, it’s about love.  

‘I was, and still am, good at putting on a mask to function. I’d be like “okay, we’re talking facts now.   I have to try and remove the emotions to talk factually  about my potentially murdered son. Believe me, it’s taken years of practice and doesn’t always work”  

‘Sometimes I look back and think, “I don’t know how I did that.” I could be on my knees, sometimes in a heap on the floor. It just feels so s*** that my son, more than likely, has lost his life. I remember Luke wanted to be an organ donor, we talked about that when he got the motorbike. But he didn’t even have the privilege to do that because we’ve never found him. I may seem resilient but the pain of living with a missing child is relentless..’ 

The ‘white whale’ of cold cases 

On May 12, 2006, police received a report that a young man who matched Luke’s description had walked past Foxhall Stadium in Ipswich around 7.30am. A day later, two people rang detectives to say they’d seen Luke in the passenger seat of a dark blue car in Woodbridge. 

In 2007, there was another sighting. One of Luke’s former classmates l was convinced she’d seen the 19-year-old outside the Aldwych Theatre in Drury Lane, London, on May 3. Nicki travelled to the capital full of hope and visited homeless shelters and hostels in case her son was there. But her search proved fruitless.  

In 2012, there was another glimmer of hope. Two men, a 40-year-old and a 25-year-old, were arrested on suspicion of murdering Luke. But they were later released without charge. When Metro contacted Suffolk Police for the latest update on the Durbin case, Unsolved Case Manager Andy Guy told Metro: ‘We continue to appeal for anyone with information that may assist in the discovery of Luke’s whereabouts, or that links any person to his disappearance.

Two arrests were made in 2012 and a number of others have been subjects of interview since 2006, but no further action has been taken against these individuals. Many people who knew Luke have come forward over the years, however, I suspect there are still some who have not told us what they know in relation to Luke’s disappearance.’ 

‘This is my white whale of cold cases,’ wrote one user when the Luke Durbin case was posted on the popular ‘Unsolved Mysteries Reddit’ thread. Meanwhile another user stated: ‘His mother seems like a really cool lady. I’m happy she is involved with helping others. I hope someone grows some and talks.’ 

Nicki maintains her son did not go missing of his own accord and has ruled out suicide. She encourages anyone with information, no matter how big or small it may seem, to contact the police. 

‘Luke will never be forgotten’ 

Nicki has campaigned with the charity Missing People to demand better support for families like hers. In 2008, she organised ‘March for the Missing’ alongside her close friend Valerie Nettles whose son, Damien, vanished in 1996. And in 2012, Nicki worked as a call-handler at Missing People, renting out a room in her Ipswich home so she could afford to travel into London for the role.  

Nicki credits her loved ones, such as  her close friends and family, for helping her get through the last 18 years.

Sign up to the Metro Lifeline challenge in support of Missing People here

On social media she posts photos of Luke alongside contact details for Suffolk Police’s Major Crime Review Team, in a bid to keep her son’s name in the spotlight.

Her most recent post on Instagram came on December 4, 2024 on what would have been Luke’s 38th birthday. Nicki shared a picture of a note he had written just a few weeks before his disappearance, when he was optimistic about his future following his exciting new job at the deli. The note read ‘Dear Mum, Thank you, I owe you my life and more. Lukey Luke.’ 

Nicki says: ‘One of his friends commented on the post and wrote “Luke will never be forgotten.” I can’t tell you how much that means to me. My son is so much more than a boy on a missing person’s poster.  

‘I would not believe it if, on May 13, 2006 when I reported Luke missing, you’d told me that I’d still be alive all these years later and have not found him. This is the most horrendous journey and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.’ 

The investigation into Luke’s disappearance is now managed by the Joint Norfolk & Suffolk Major Crime Review and Unsolved Case Team.

A Suffolk Police spokesperson told Metro: ‘We are extremely keen to get the much needed closure for all of Luke’s family and friends to understand what happened to him.’

If you have any information about Luke Durbin’s disappearance, please contact Suffolk Police or Missing People. To follow Nicki’s fight to find her son, you can follow the ‘Find Luke’ Instagram page 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk 

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From a cramped home in the suburb of East Sheen in London, sisters Mary Asprey and Janet Newman set out to make history in 1986. 

The siblings had been shaken by the disappearance of estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, whose family lived nearby. The 25-year-old vanished in July 1986 after she arranged to meet a client called ‘Mr Kipper’ to show him around a house for sale in Fulham.

Mary and Janet had seen how Suzy’s parents, Paul and Diana, were left to navigate the confusion of their daughter’s disappearance alone. Police could provide updates, but there was no direct support during their ordeal. 

Desperate to help, Mary and Janet mobilised volunteers to launch a helpline from their shared East Sheen home. They wanted to offer comfort to people concerned about the Lamplugh case, whether they were directly involved or not. 

Soon, it became clear that there was a huge demand for their services. Up and down the UK, hundreds of families had lost a loved one in mysterious circumstances and were struggling to cope.

In 1992, Mary and Janet took the massive risk to re-mortgage their house and use the funds to start the charity. Volunteers were bolstered by staff members who comforted devastated parents, passed on messages from missing teenagers and campaigned for greater support for families of missing people. The sisters’ success was cemented in its first year by an office visit from Diana, Princess of Wales in October.

‘Mary and Janet were amazing advocates,’ Jo Youle OBE, CEO of Missing People, tells Metro from the charity’s office in East Sheen. ‘They knew the Lamplugh family and they all lived in Sheen, which is how the charity ended up being based here. Mary and Janet realised there was no support for Suzy’s parents and wanted to do something about it.

‘They started in a bedroom, then re-mortaged their house, then persuaded Waitrose [the Missing People office is located above the supermarket] to donate them office space. They put everything, all their soul into this charity.’

The sisters were said to be ‘yin and yang’ with Janet more reflective and skilled at taking calls, and Mary the more outgoing of the pair. She appealed directly to police and policy makers to try and attract more support.

The impact of their work became clear in 1994, when the charity was inundated with calls during the 25 Cromwell Street murder investigation. People with missing family members had read about the Fred and Rose West killing spree and rang up to check if their loved one was one of the victims. Mary and Janet’s team worked with Gloucestershire Police during the investigation and, together, they called on other forces across Britain to have better procedures for recording and logging missing people. 

At one point, a name on the charity’s database matched up with a comment made by Fred West, which led to the identification of Juanita Mott, 18, as one of his victims.

Mary and Janet often gave a profile to the cause and to missing people who would not otherwise have been heard of. But their charity also dealt with reuniting families after schisms or lost contact. Although when someone did not want to be found, this decision was – and still is – respected.

In 1999, Mary Asprey told Nottingham Evening Post: ‘We respect the right of people to go missing. That is very important because sometimes people don’t want to be found. If we find missing people and they don’t want to be put in touch with their families, then we honour that.’

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When the charity’s helpline first launched, Mary and Janet had three staff members under their wings. By 1999, they had a team of 29 staff and 60 volunteers answering phones and searching for thousands of missing people. The charity’s ethos became ‘we are a lifeline when someone disappears.’ 

In 2004, Janet stressed how difficult the Christmas period seemed to be for relatives of missing people. She told the Dorset Echo: ‘If someone is ill, they will nurse them. If someone dies, they can grieve. When someone goes missing there is absolutely nothing, your life is on hold. The longer it goes on the worse it gets.

‘Christmas is a time when you sit back and reflect. It is very hard because you are not going out to buy those Christmas presents you would have bought the missing person. And obviously when you sit down for that Christmas lunch there is always that empty space.

‘But sadly it doesn’t matter what time of the year it is – you will never forget the person that’s missing.’

In 2007 the charity relaunched as ‘Missing People’ and was swiftly thrust into the spotlight when three-year-old Madeleine McCann vanished in Portugal on May 3 the same year. Kate McCann is now an ambassador for Missing People and has worked alongside the charity on major campaigns.

Over the years, Missing People campaigns have teamed up with Royal Mail to empower postal staff to look for missing people locally; worked with Deliveroo  to attach posters to the side of delivery bikes and launched ‘urgent appeal’ app notifications with the Trainline app.

Meanwhile, charity patrons include the Duchess of Gloucester, actor Stephen Fry and TV’s Lorraine Kelly. Jo says Mary and Janet were ‘experts’ at networking and could find patrons in the most unlikely of places.

‘There is a picture up there of Trevor McDonald,’ Jo says as she points toward a photo on her office wall. In it, the newsreader poses alongside the sisters at a Missing People event. 

Jo continues: ‘The way they got Trevor as patron is a classic. He was standing down at Mortlake Green [popular walking area in south-west London] when they spotted him from far away. So they went charging over and told him all about the charity. He’s supported us ever since. 

‘That’s Mary and Janet, they had a sense of determination but also a sense of impatience which I think is really important. They didn’t want to sit and wait for things to change around them, they wanted to make that change happen.’

In 1996, Mary and Janet were honoured for their services to charity with OBEs. In 1998 both were celebrated with the ‘UK Women of Europe Award’ and in the same year given the European Women of Achievement Humanitarianism Award.

They stepped down from official roles at Missing People in 2004 yet continued to attend events and encourage people to support the charity’s great work. 

Jo, who was a member of pop band Scarlet before she entered the charity sector, became CEO of Missing People in 2012. Her appointment came after years working first as a Samaritan and later a call-handler for Missing People. Jo still remembers hearing from Mary and Janet shortly after her CEO role was announced.

‘I was walking through Waterloo Station when my phone rang,’ Jo recalls. ‘It was Janet, but they essentially spoke as one person. She went [Jo momentarily swaps her native Hull accent for a posh Southern accent] “Hello! Jo! We are so glad it is you.

‘I’d come up through the services background and I think that was important to them. When the charity started out, Mary and Janet would be taking calls day and night from their house. Even in the later years, they’d turn up to the office, work a day, go to the hairdressers, then head off to evening events to network. They were so dedicated to the charity – it was their everything.’

Sadly, Janet died in 2016 and Mary died aged 80 in 2021. Until the end, they were dedicated to caring for the most vulnerable members of society and their legacy lives on, Jo explains. 

‘Their ethos is still here,’ the CEO says. ‘They needed a lot of determination to raise the profile of missing people and raise the funds to support those affected. But they did it and didn’t give up along the way. That tenacity, we still have that across the Missing People team.

‘Mary and Janet had this amazing mission to be a lifeline for people, and that mission stays the same.’

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk 

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‘People have told me he was cut up and fed to the pigs, that he was chopped up and put in a lobster pot, that he was thrown overboard in the middle of the Channel, that his head was kicked like it was a soccer ball, that he was stuck with a pitchfork…’ says Val Nettles, reeling off just some of the horrifying rumours she has heard in the 28 years since her son Damien vanished.

‘All of these things can’t be true,’ she continues. ‘But they stay in my mind, like visualisations. Even if I dismiss a rumour, those thoughts are still here.’

The 72-year-old is speaking to Metro over Zoom from her home in Texas, thousands of miles from the windswept Isle of Wight where Damien was brought up. Val and her husband Ed, who met at university in 1973, moved to the island in 1990.

Val had been brought up on the Isle of Wight and it seemed a tight-knit, safe area to raise their four children. Gurnard, the village where they lived, was the type of place where you’d leave your windows open if you popped out to the shops and where teenagers roamed freely between each other’s homes.

On Saturday, November 2 1996, Val waved goodbye to Damien, 16, as he headed out the door around 7.30pm. The teenager braved the grey and gusty evening to meet with his friend Chris Boon and his brother Davey, as well as two 14-year-old girls they knew.

When Damien and Chris grew bored of the small gathering, they went in search of a more exciting Saturday night.

The friends popped into an Alldays newsagent and picked up a few cans of the – now discontinued – White Lightning cider. The strong drink (7.5%) made the pair merry as they jumped on a ferry from East Cowes to Cowes, a journey took just a few minutes.

Sign up to the Metro Lifeline challenge in support of Missing People here

After wandering around the town centre, at 10.30pm the boys parted ways. But instead of heading home to dry off from the rain like Chris had, Damien nipped into local chip shop Yorkies where some Army personnel were ordering food. In an interaction caught on the shop’s CCTV, he ordered some chips.

When the manager of Yorkies closed up shop, she spotted Damien, dressed in blue jeans and a dark fleece, stride past at 11.45pm. 

Witnesses saw the teenager walking along the High Street and he was last seen around 12:02am on November 3 on street CCTV. Police have since lost this footage.

The following morning, on November 3, Damien’s family woke and realised he hadn’t come home. Val and Ed called his friends then jumped into their car and drove all across the island looking for their lost son.

While the Coastguard scanned the waters for Damien that day, police refused to send out search teams or sniffer dogs immediately.

‘I was panic stricken that my child was gone,’ Val, who was a medical receptionist at the time, recalls. ‘He might be 6ft 3, but he’s still a little boy to me.

‘I think a lot of apathy about his disappearance came from tired policemen with very little professional curiosity. They thought “oh, another missing kid, they’re a pain in the arse.” They said he’d be back by tea-time. But Damien had never gone missing before, which is why it was totally out of character.’

To begin with, police assumed the 16-year-old had run away or fallen into the sea. Val disagrees. She thinks Damien came to harm in ‘an accident gone wrong’ and that someone on the island knows what happened to her son.

‘I feel strongly that something has happened to Damien that stopped him coming home,’ she says tearfully. ‘I’d love to think he’d gone off because he wanted to but I honestly, hand on heart, do not believe that. Something bad happened to Damien, I think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time around the wrong people.

‘There is the suggestion he fell into the sea, but Damien was a strong swimmer and he knew better than to go anywhere near the water in bad weather. It was rough that night, it was blowing a gale with driving rain coming over the seafront. He would have stayed on the streets that were lit, not gone towards a very dark unlit seafront that was being pounded by sea and rain.

‘My husband spoke to the harbour master in Cowes, who was fairly adamant that, given the way the tides were in the early hours of November 3, that if Damien had gone into the water then his body would have been “pushed” back into shore and he would have been found.

‘A lot of people assume he went to America, where my husband is from, or Singapore where we lived before the Isle of Wight. But he didn’t take his passport and I don’t think he would ever do that. He always kept in contact with us.’

As days turned into weeks, Val kept pushing the police to carry out more searches and pleaded with local businesses to put up missing posters. She thumbed through the Yellow Pages business directory and found the charity Missing People who she reached out to for support.

Val ended up having 20 weeks of counselling in the aftermath of Damien’s disappearance. Heartbreakingly, five years after the 16-year-old vanished, the Nettles family was forced to leave the Isle of Wight and move to America when Ed lost his job. Val kept all of Damien’s belongings; from drawings he’d done as a child to Christmas ornaments he’d made and treasures all her memories of her son.

Val remembers how he weighed 7lbs 10oz and had ‘big brown eyes’ when he was born on June 21, 1980. She writes online about his love of music and how, aged just 11, he started a band called Distorted Justice with his friend Alex Roberts. She remembers conversations with Damien where he revealed he hoped to become a marine biologist.

‘I have kept his school work, his clothes, his guitars, the love notes he wrote to his girlfriend Gemma, everything,’ Val, a former administrative assistant, explains.

‘It’s surprising how important every single tiny crumpled thing he might have touched, made or written on has become to me. When we left the Isle of Wight the strangest thing happened when I carried a final box out his bedroom. His passport fell out the box and onto the floor, I felt strongly like this was him saying “please don’t leave me behind.”’

Despite the distance between her new home of Texas and her old home of the Isle of Wight, Val diligently kept posting on social media and reaching out for help in her mission to find Damien. She gave endless interviews, in the hopes that someone reading a magazine in a dentist office or doctor’s surgery might just look up and see her son in front of them.

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary have made a total of eight arrests in relation to Damien’s disappearance with each individual later let go. In 2011, a house on Marsh Road in Gurnard on the Isle of Wight was searched after a 44-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman were investigated. Previous arrests in connection to Damien’s disappearance included four men from the Isle of Wight and a ‘person’ from Kent. 

When contacted for latest updates into the case, Detective Inspector Julia Nicol from Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary told Metro: ‘Our shared objective with the Nettles family remains finding out what happened to Damien after he was last seen in Cowes in November 1996 by following all viable lines of enquiry.

‘It’s important to stress that this is still an open case and any new credible information will be explored for any viable lines of enquiry. Despite the length of the investigation we all hope that a line of enquiry will be identified to us at some stage that will allow us to provide answers to the Nettles family about Damien’s disappearance.’

In 2016, the BBC released an eight-part documentary called ‘Unsolved – The Boy Who Disappeared.’ Investigative journalists found that a ‘key suspect’ in Damien’s case was known to ‘intimidate’ potential witnesses on the Isle of Wight but, still, the mystery of his disappearance has never been solved.

Despite everything, the teenager’s family and friends have never given up hope of finding out what happened to him. There have been events like ‘Dig for Damien’ which saw his friends search Parkhurst forest and Spencers Copse on the Isle of Wight for a body after a tip-off from an ex-police informant who has since been deemed unreliable.

Hampshire Police turned down the opportunity for Damien’s case to be covered on Crimewatch, much to his family’s disappointment as they hoped it could lead to new leads.

Whenever Val gets new information, she feeds it back to the police. There are still unanswered questions which keep her up at night. Damien had a camera when he went out with Chris, why has it never been found? How was important CCTV tape of her son on the High Street mysteriously lost by police? Was her son really involved with drugs?

‘The only hope I have is that someone will come up with the information we need to find answers, or that Damien’s remains will be found,’ says Val.

‘At this point, I don’t even want retribution. If someone is arrested, I want them to tell me where my child is. Then we can lay him to rest and get out of this cycle we’ve been in for 28 years, of not really having a life outside of this dilemma. It’s very debilitating to live like this.’

Val wrote a book about her experience called ‘The Boy Who Disappeared’ and also writes on Substack. She finds writing therapeutic.

Through the charity Missing People, which she describes as a ‘lifeline’, the 72-year-old has been able to reach out to other parents whose children have gone missing and understand what it’s like to spend agonising years without closure. Val has become a member of the Advisory group for Missing People and attends creative writing sessions for other families of the missing.

One friend made through the charity is Nicki Durbin from Suffolk whose son Luke, 19, vanished in 2006. She and Val walked together in the 2008 ‘March for the Missing’ with several other families through London which called on greater support for families like theirs. When the mums feel particularly low, they imagine Damien and Luke together.

Val adds: ‘Nicki and I like to think that, if the boys are really gone, then they’re both sitting out there somewhere, having a beer together. A lot of families I’ve met through Missing People share this kind of loss that other people don’t always understand.

‘It’s an ambiguous loss. We have no conclusion, no ideas, no new information. Even after all these years, these rumours, a documentary, we still don’t know what happened to Damien. All we have is the facts. But I’ll never stop looking for answers.’

Anyone with new information about Damien or his disappearance can contact Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary by phoning 101 or emailing operation.ridgewood@hampshire.police.uk. You can also contact Missing People via the details on the poster below.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk 

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Are you looking for a New Year’s adventure that will truly make a difference? Want to see some of Britain’s most glorious scenery while you’re at it?

Well, in that case, Metro’s brand new Lifeline challenge is definitely calling your name.

Taking place in May on the Isle of Wight, you can choose to walk – or even run, if you’re feeling particularly fit – 25km, 53km or 106km around the island and help raise money for Metro Lifeline’s chosen charity for 2025: Missing People.

The only UK charity dedicated to reconnecting missing people and their loved ones, we’ll be sharing stories about their amazing work – and asking Metro readers to sign up to our challenge, to help raise vital funds for them, too.

‘Someone is reported missing every 90 seconds in the UK,’ Jo Youle OBE, CEO of Missing People, tells Metro.

‘That means life is lonely, scary, and uncertain for 170,000 families every year.  Right now, people are searching for children, fearing for their safety. They are searching too for mums, dads, brothers and sisters, and grandparents who suddenly feel very vulnerable. But with your support we can be there for people who are missing and those who love them. However long it takes.’

So, if you want your New Year’s Resolution for 2025 to truly make a difference, lace up your trainers and join us in the Isle of Wight next year.

SIGN UP TO THE METRO LIFELINE CHALLENGE HERE

Just five miles off the coast of Hampshire, across the Solent, it’s only two hours door-to-door from London – and participants can even get a ferry discount thanks to our event organisers Ultra Challenge.

On the day, not only do our trekkers get hot drinks at the start-line and free food and sweets at checkpoints, but they get a unique opportunity to explore the Isle of Wight for an unforgettable experience, no matter what distance.

‘Last year’s Lifeline event with Ultra Challenge along the Jurassic Coast was an incredible adventure,’ says Claie Wilson, Metro’s Deputy Editor. ‘The sense of achievement after taking on such a big challenge, all the while knowing we are doing it for such an amazing cause, really is unbeatable.

‘It’s sounds such a cliche, but it’s a really memory making thing to be part of – and so good for the soul.’

This year’s route will take in breathtaking scenery such as the Needles, a dramatic stack of rock which lies off the western point of the Isle of Wight, along with a hike through the historic town of Cowes. 

‘This is a popular event in our calendar, and we are expecting over 2,000 to join us on the island,’ Jan Smolaga, Business Development Manager at Ultra Challenge, tells Metro. ‘From a 25km quarter challenge, to the full 100km loop around the island, there’s an option for everyone. The 2024 Isle of Wight Ultra Challenge raised £580,000 for UK charities, and we hope to exceed that total next year.’

Talking about joining forces with Metro for our 2025 Lifeline campaign, Jo Youle adds: ‘We are so thrilled! Please sign-up for the Isle of Wight challenge and get fundraising. Or you can donate to the Lifeline campaign and help someone find support and safety. 

‘Together, we will be raising vital funds for our Helpline, Support Workers, and counselling. Services that help people to cope in the most heart-breaking of times. And to save lives. Thank you to Metro and every reader for this brilliant support throughout 2025.’

‘It’s like living with a cut which will never heal,’ Toni Freeman says when talking about her sister, Lorraine, who disappeared 26 years ago in 1998. 

‘Like lots of siblings, we bickered when we were younger. But we grew really close as we got older, like two peas in a pod.

‘She’s missed out on so much since she vanished.’

Lorraine, Toni and their brother Peter were brought up in a three-bedroom house in Carnwadric, a neighbourhood in Glasgow. The siblings rode bikes, played games like Monopoly and watched films together and with local kids.

Parents Anthony, a mechanical fitter, and Phyllis, a care worker, had met while working in the RAF. The Freemans, of Jamaican heritage, were one of a handful of families of colour in the Carnwadric area and supported each other in the rare instances they faced racist abuse. But, for the most part, their life in Scotland was positive.

‘It was a nice, close community where we grew up,’ Toni tells Metro. ‘Lorraine was the oldest and born in 1963. She and I had some of those typical teenage sister battles, like when I pinched her clothes or things like that. She was quite shy at school and struggled a bit because she was dyslexic. Lorraine left school at 16 and really came out of her shell when she began to work. She was a lot happier and had a lot of friends.’

Lorraine worked at the local Holiday Inn and worked hard, saving up her wages. The sisters, in search of new adventures, both moved to England in their early twenties. Toni headed to the Lake District to work in a hotel while Lorraine relocated to St John’s Wood in London for her job.

Despite the 300-mile distance, the pair remained close. 

‘We called on the landline every week or two to catch-up,’ Toni recalls. ‘Lorraine was dyslexic so learning a bit more about reading and writing. She really enjoyed it and seemed to be coming into her own.

‘It was around then she met her boyfriend, Philip. They both moved in together, into a flat in Essex. As far as I was aware, they were quite happy.’

Lorraine and Phillip’s flat was in Purfleet, Essex – just a few minutes from the local train station. 

‘It was the type of place I’d never thought Lorraine would have lived,’ Toni continues. ‘It was a very small rented room. I was making good money from work at the time so said, “look, I can lend you some money if you want to move somewhere bigger. Why are you here?” 

‘Lorraine was always very tidy and precise, so it just felt such a strange place for her to live. But she showed me her bank balance and said she did have money, she just wanted to save up.’

On August 13, 1998 Philip and Lorraine – who were engaged by this point – made their way toward a taxi rank at East Ham station. Philip was off to Ireland to visit family and jumped in a cab to the airport while Lorraine waved him off. 

When he returned ten days later on August 13, she was gone. Lorraine’s personal items, including her purse, remained at the flat. Phillip called the police to report his fiance missing and officers called Lorraine’s mum Phyllis who let the wider family know.

‘The day we were told she vanished, I just couldn’t believe it,’ Toni recalls. ‘For the first few months I just kept thinking she would show up. Lorraine had no reason to run away, she was having the time of her life and had a life and a future to look forward to. I told myself she’d gone on holiday or something while Philip was away. Everytime the phone rang, I would think “could it be her?” 

In a television appeal, Phillip and Phyllis begged for anyone with information to come forward. 

On September 14, 1998, Det Insp Terry Geraghty told the Colchester Gazette: ‘It’s a month now since she [Lorraine] was last seen and although we have no reason to think anything has happened to her, we are becoming more anxious as there has been no news of her.

‘We believe that for her to go missing is out of character. There is no suggestion that she has left the country. Inquiries are continuing at a reasonably high level.’

Gravel pits near Lorraine’s home were searched and a local lake was dredged as part of investigations. But no trace of the 35-year-old was ever found and no arrests were ever made in relation to her disappearance. 

Lorraine left no note or any warning signs she was looking to start a new life. Toni and her family still suspect foul play was involved in her disappearance and that police should have interviewed more people to piece together her final days. 

‘Police didn’t speak to me for a long time,’ Toni, who now lives in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, says. ‘Her friends weren’t spoken to either. One got in touch with my mum after not hearing from Lorraine for months and had no clue she’d vanished without a trace.

‘I think it was four years after Lorraine disappeared that the police interviewed me. They spoke to mum at the time, but from what mum said, they [the police] did think the disappearance was strange. It was a lot easier to hide things back then, people are a lot more visible now.’

Essex Police Chief Inspector Anthony Atkin says long-term missing persons’ cases, such as Lorraine’s, are reviewed annually for ‘fresh perspective.’ In a statement provided to Metro, CI Atkin explains: ‘As district commander [for the Thurrock region], I have reviewed the investigation on several occasions personally. We continue to carry out intelligence checks in the hope that we will find a trace of her whereabouts.

‘Our original files show that, at the time, we carried out a thorough investigation. House-to-house enquiries were conducted, a nearby lake was searched, and CCTV footage of her last known movements was obtained and followed up. Her records have been shared nationally and cross-checked across all forces, and the National Crime Agency also have a copy of Lorraine’s dental records and DNA.’

Toni was pregnant with her first child, Ryan, when her sister went missing. Lorraine was excited to become an auntie, so when Ryan was born in 1999, Toni knew something very wrong had happened.

‘I hadn’t heard anything,’ she says quietly. ‘Lorraine would have tried to visit or send a message if she was alive. But she didn’t and that’s when I knew for sure something bad had happened. She’d never leave us like this.’

On every visit to Scotland to visit family, Lorraine’s disappearance was a ‘dark cloud’ hanging over everyone. On birthdays or other celebrations, conversations would inevitably turn to where she might be.

‘Even now, it’s like living with a cut that never healed,’ Toni says. ‘I think about her an awful lot. She’s missed out on so many good times.  You’d think after all these years that we’d hear something, but there’s been nothing. Every time I saw on the news about a body found in Essex I’d think, “could it be her?”’’

Lorraine, if alive, would now be 62.

Toni isn’t sure what has happened to her boyfriend as he hasn’t kept in touch with the family. ‘Last I heard, he moved back to Ireland,’ she says. 

Lorraine’s mother Phyllis is now 84 and in hospital with dementia while she awaits a room in a care home. Before her mind deteriorated, she kept one of Lorraine’s teddy bears in her living room as a source of hope. Meanwhile Anthony, Lorraine’s dad, died several years ago. Their brother Paul is currently in hospital with schizophrenia. 

Toni, a service manager for supported living homes, solely carries the weight of Lorraine’s disappearance on her shoulders. But the 59-year-old credits her ‘lovely family’ and ‘fantastic friends’ for letting her live a ‘very full life’ despite the trauma of losing Lorraine, as well as the charity Missing People which supports families like hers.

If a song comes on which Lorraine liked growing up – such as anything by Duran Duran and Haircut 100 – then Toni’s mind wanders. 

‘She is always there in my mind,’ Toni adds. ‘You never get over something like this, how could you? When someone goes missing, it is important you talk about them. My friends will always say “have you heard anything?” and I like that, I think it’s an important way of supporting me.’

Lorraine has never been pronounced dead and, as a result, there is no physical memorial to her. Toni says she ‘might look into’ doing so in the future but, just now she’s still holding onto hope.

‘I want to know what happened to my sister,’ she says firmly. ‘I won’t stop talking about her. Even if it turns out she did decide to start a new life and wants nothing to do with us, which I think is highly unlikely, I just want to know.’

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk 

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‘I felt fed up with a journey I didn’t ask for. No child should have to know what the word ‘cancer’ means. Looking back, I can’t believe I was so strong. But I had to be, I had no other choice.’

That’s what teenager Ruby-Jo Sneed told Metro in the first interview of our 2024 Lifeline campaign, back in January. ‘It’s important that as young people we speak out and get the support we deserve,’ the 17-year-old added. 

Each year, Metro teams up with a charity to raise vital funds and help highlight its invaluable work, and in 2024, Young Lives vs Cancer was our chosen charity. 

Every day staff and volunteers support families from the moment the doctor says ‘it’s cancer’, while financial grants are also an integral part of their work; especially for families who have had to choose ‘between paying bills or buying food’ after a cancer diagnosis. 

With a series of hard-hitting articles and first-person pieces, we learned the true reality of what happens when a young person has their life up-rooted. Ainsley Foster, who was 21 when he was diagnosed with cancer, likened his Young Lives vs Cancer support worker Eve to a ‘second mum’ in helping him throughout the whole ordeal.

Alongside raising awareness through stories, we also called on Metro readers, staff and charity’s supporters to take on the Jurassic Coast Ultra Challenge, a mammoth 58km trek in Dorset to raise as much money as possible for Young Lives vs Cancer. 

On the day, our fundraisers fell victim to an unexpected storm and battled through ‘rivers of mud.’, but it was all worth it as we can now share that the our 2024 Lifeline challenge has raised £26,317 for Young Lives vs Cancer. 

The life-changing amount could provide 263 families with a financial grant to transform their cancer journey. They might use it on household bills, put it towards transport costs to hospital appointments or use it to buy new clothes for children with cancer whose weight frequently fluctuates.

Rachel Kirby-Rider, chief executive at Young Lives vs Cancer told Metro: ‘We want to say a huge thank you to the team at Metro for partnering with Young Lives vs Cancer earlier this year, and everyone who took on the Jurassic Coast trek. 

‘As a charity, we rely on the kindness of supporters to continue to be there for children and young people with cancer and their families, so the money raised from Metro’s Lifeline Campaign has made a huge difference to those we are here to support.’

Talking about this year’s Lifeline, Metro’s Deputy Editor Claie Wilson said: ‘Knowing that the money raised will help so many families dealing with the horrendous reality of a cancer diagnosis is why this campaign is so important to Metro. 

‘Working with Young Lives vs Cancer throughout 2024 and sharing the stories of the families they have helped has been a real privilege.

‘We’re just glad to be able to help them in some way so they can help those who need their support.’

Our Jurassic Coast adventure was one of 18 events in Action Challenge’s Ultra Challenge Series, which has raised more than £10 million for charities like Young Lives Vs Cancer, Mind and Diabetes UK.

JustGiving became the official fundraising partner to Action Challenge in January 2024 and with more than 35,000 people having taken part in an Ultra Challenge this year, the number of people supporting a charity has increased by 20%, compared to 2023.

Jan Smolaga, from Action Challenge, said: ‘At a time when charities need more funding than ever, it’s fantastic to see so many people ready to strap on their boots and take on a tough challenge for a good cause. To see the Series raise over £10 million in a year for the first time is an incredible achievement, and we hope to exceed that total in 2025.’

While Metro’s 2024 Lifeline campaign is coming to an end, plans are already underway for next year, which will see a brand new charity partnership and exciting new challenge.

As well as Young Lives vs Cancer, Metro has supported suicide prevention charity PAPYRUS and anti-poverty charity The Hygiene Bank with over £120,000 raised throughout our Lifelines campaigns.

To find out more about the campaign, click here.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk 

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I’ll never forget the day my life changed forever. The day I lost my daughter. 

It was 11 November 2022. I was with Natalie, by her bedside in hospital, when she passed away from melanoma. She was only 28.   

My heart was, and still is, broken. But I am doing all I can to make sure we continue to honour her one final request: that she will always be remembered.  

Natalie was a beautiful daughter. She was always cheerful and funny. She was a wonderful sister to Nick (who is non-verbal and classically autistic) and the two of them truly had a special bond.  

She was also an incredible friend and an outstanding teacher. Her students adored her but really she had a huge impact on everyone who she came into contact with. 

Mostly, my girl was kind. She took part in many charity challenges, including a skydive, the Three Peaks Challenge and a half marathon. She was generous, not just with money and fundraising, but with her time and love.  

When she told me that a mole on her leg (that she’d always had) had started bleeding in July 2018, I was worried. 

We were just about to go on a week-long holiday to France, but I insisted we get it sorted before we left. I secured her a GP appointment for the following morning. The doctor examined the mole, and I did my best to reassure Natalie it would all be OK. 

However, while we were away in France, we got a phone call to say Natalie would need further investigations when she came home. By the end of August, she’d had the mole removed and it was sent off for testing.   

A couple of weeks later, we were told she needed to come back into the hospital to speak with the doctor. We knew then it wasn’t going to be an ‘everything is fine’ meeting, but as scared as we both were, we tried to stay positive.  

Sitting in their office, the consultant told us that it was melanoma – a type of skin cancer that can spread to other parts of the body – and my world stopped.

Natalie was 24. She’d been on holidays abroad in the sun but she had never been on a sunbed, nor had she ever burnt herself. 

Understandably, Natalie was terrified of the word ‘cancer’ and of what might lie ahead. But she was also determined to stay strong.   

Surgery was needed to remove any remaining cancer cells around the area where her mole had once been and doctors told her she would be closely monitored with regular scans. 

For a while, they continuously came up clear and life continued as normal. Then in December 2019, a scan showed a new lesion in her lung.   

I remember Natalie turning to me with tears in her eyes and saying, ‘Mum, it’s now Stage 4’. Lost for words, we hugged each other tightly and decided we were in this together.  

She was referred to The Royal Marsden, a world-leading cancer centre, for radiotherapy, consisting of three doses over three consecutive weeks. 

By the third week, scans showed that the lung lesion had significantly shrunk. We were ecstatic – the radiotherapy had worked. Everything was looking positive. 

Natalie continued to have regular monitoring scans and then, sadly, a year later, a new lung lesion was detected. 

This time, she was treated with targeted therapy, where the proteins that control how cancer cells grow, divide, and spread are directly targeted. This was administered in the form of a tablet every day.

For 18 months, things were once again fine and there were no lesions present on her scans. But then the cancer returned a third time, leaving immunotherapy as her only option.  

Unlike chemotherapy, which uses drugs to target and kill fast-growing cells, immunotherapy uses the body’s immune system to target cancerous cells. Natalie would begin having a combined dose of two drugs, every three weeks.  

She was amazing, never once complaining. She carried on with life and even continued to go back to work. 

She and I took part in The Banham Marsden March in May 2022, which saw us walk 15 miles together and raise just over £2,000. Crossing that finish line with my daughter will forever be one of my most special memories now. Natalie vowed to complete it every year. 

Unfortunately, just as she began her immunotherapy treatment that September, new lesions were detected on her brain and liver. The melanoma was attacking hard and fast, and Natalie began to deteriorate.  

She was taken ill at home, with worrying signs she could have swelling on the brain. We rushed her to the critical care unit, where doctors managed to get her stable. After a few days, however, we were told they couldn’t make her better. 

Natalie was amazingly brave and didn’t cry, complain or get angry, but accepted her fate.   

I was still in total shock. Everything had happened so quickly. Only a few days before she went into hospital for the last time she had been working at school as a teacher. Now, she was being moved to a ward and we were preparing to say goodbye. 

After four years of hard treatment, she passed away. Despite snow, around 240 people came to Natalie’s funeral to say goodbye. 

A further 250 people attended a separate church service her school put on just for her students and their parents. My heart ached to hear such wonderful things about her from both her students and colleagues. She would have been so humbled. 

Today, to keep Natalie’s memory alive, we are continuing to raise funds for The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. This will go towards the hospital’s melanoma research, so we can find new treatments for patients like Natalie all around the world.    

I’ve since taken part in The Banham Marsden March for a second time, only this time I had my husband, Natalie’s boyfriend and 35 of Natalie’s closest friends, colleagues and family members by my side and we raised £15,000.   

This year, I walked the first 10 miles with a friend, and my husband and son joined me to walk the last five miles together.  

Taking part is not only an amazing way to raise awareness and funds, it’s also a chance to meet other people in the same position as you. 

When you’re grieving, there is a feeling of loneliness as often, people just don’t know what to say to you. I’ve now realised that I am not alone.   

To date, we’ve raised over £34,000 for The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity from friends and family members’ fundraising. 

Natalie’s cousins in Jersey ran the virtual London Marathon and organised a quiz night for over 100 people. Her friends, cousins and my husband have all taken part in half marathons and marathons, and I jogged 40 miles in January. And we all took part in a 10k run for the first anniversary of her passing, too.   

I also found Natalie’s bucket list shortly after she died, which has led me to signing up for a skydive in June this year – her birthday month – when she would have been turning 30. 

I just hope Natalie would be touched to see that we’re carrying on her legacy, and we want to make sure there are no more stories that end like hers. 

So many people have moles and don’t worry about them or get them checked, but melanoma is a real issue. It’s important to be aware of the signs and symptoms. It really can happen to anyone, even my baby girl.  

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

As rivers of brown muddy water flowed beneath our feet and lightning crackled overhead, there was a moment when Team Metro began to question just why we were walking 58km along the rugged Jurassic Coast during a thunderstorm.

Deep down though, we all knew the answer.

When the ominous dark clouds appeared as we hiked towards the picturesque Lulworth Cove in Dorset, we initially mistook rumblings of thunder for military activity from the nearby Lulworth Ranges. But soon, it became clear a storm was brewing.

Picking up the pace we tried, and failed, to outrun the intensity of the rain which followed. Described by many of the 2000-plus walkers as ‘biblical’, it turned paths into streams within minutes. Our clothes were soaked through and walking boots drenched by muddy brown water. Plastic bags were hurriedly unearthed and fashioned into phone holders, bag protectors and even waterproof hats.

This storm had caught everyone by surprise, the Met Office only released a yellow weather warning of its arrival at 10am that day. By the time the storm hit at 7pm, our group had already walked for 11 hours through rural Dorset. But even as the weather conditions took a turn, we were determined to brave the storm, as this walk was for a very special cause.

Metro’s Lifeline Challenge

For this year’s Lifeline campaign Metro.co.uk teamed up with the charity Young Lives vs Cancer. Not only was our mission to raise awareness of the vital work they do, but also raise money for the charity by encouraging readers, supporters and staff to take on an epic fundraising event – and trekking 58km of the Jurassic Coast was it.

DONATE HERE TO OUR LIFELINE FUNDRAISER

Young Lives Vs Cancer works to make sure every child and young person diagnosed with cancer gets the right care and support at the right time. We’ve raised £20,000 so far as part of our fundraiser, you can add to that by clicking here. 

Ahead of our challenge, we spoke to people supported by the charity to find out just how invaluable their help is. Jasmin Sarll, whose son Hugo was diagnosed with a rare liver cancer at just two-years-old, spoke of the daily battle she fought deciding whether to ‘pay rent or put food on the table’ Thanks to Young Lives Vs Cancer, she received grants to recover financially and focus on her son’s treatment.

Meanwhile Ainsley Foster, who was 21 when he was diagnosed with cancer, temporarily lost his vision during his treatment and spent eight-days in an induced coma. He likened his Young Lives vs Cancer support worker Eve to a ‘second mum’ in helping him throughout the whole ordeal.

The walk

As the Lifeline team arrived at Corfe Castle to start our challenge on Saturday, May 18, Kat Tetley, of Young Lives vs Cancer, told the group: ‘Know that every step you take, you’re making a huge difference to the lives of children and young people facing cancer.’

The next thing we knew, we were already passing through the start line alongside 3,000 other trekkers, as music from the Greatest Showman played over speakers.

Gentle hills eased us into the hike and we soon reached the 11km checkpoint, where the team stocked up on fruit, custard pastries and flapjacks. We then marched through the town of Swanage, with the family-run Surprise ‘N’ Store shop on hand for a last-minute cap purchase for team member Connie, before we circled back past Corfe Castle. 

Along the way, spirits were lifted by strangers who spotted our Young Lives vs Cancer t-shirts and offered support. “Good luck!” called two children as they walked with their parents on the beach. “Well done, keep going” a group of cyclists shouted as they whizzed past on the Priest’s Way trail. One paediatric nurse spotted the charity logo on our t-shirts, and excitedly told us how important the work of the charity was in her local hospital.

Coming together at the 25km checkpoint, at Bucknowle farm near Church Knowle village around 3pm, there was a sense of pride and, of course, weariness. After a quick lunch and some blister TLC, we were off again.

It was here that the real challenge began, with steep hills and wild weather lying between us and the next checkpoint at 42km. A scramble up a particular steep hill near White Nothe, which we affectionately nick-named ‘the Beast’, was followed by a stroll above the beautiful Lulworth Cove. 

When the thunderstorm hit around 6.30pm, heads bowed down as the team charged towards our next rest stop at Daggers Gate. Foot traffic jams emerged at certain areas of the route, as walkers worked out the best way to navigate flooded roads or traverse boggy paths. But the wider task at hand – the fundraiser for Young Lives vs Cancer – kept everyone going even through the hardest parts.

By the time we finall reached the checkpoint, the sun was beginning to set and the rain ironically easing the moment we reached cover.

It was here where a difficult decision was made to splinter the group. Trek organisers had put on emergency shuttles for shivering walkers wrapped in foil blankets whose water-logged boots and soaked through clothes made it too risky to carry on.

However, a smaller Lifeline group of five Lwere able to continue and, armed with dry kit and head torches borrowed from others, we were determined to reach the finish. 

After a quick picture at Durdle Door, the walkers clambered up two more huge hills on the Jurassic Coast. One team member resorted to walking on hands and knees ‘like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings’ on the latter peak, Chaldon Hill.

By this point, darkness had fallen and our beautiful views were replaced by disconcerting shadows of hillsides and coastlines. Green glow sticks placed on fences and gates directed us onwards.

Then, out of nowhere, lights emerged on the horizon. It was Weymouth, our final goal.

As we crossed the finish line at Lodmoor country park, The Only Way is Up blasted through the speakers and we were greeted with hot food, prosecco, big hugs and high fives.

The next day, as we rested our weary feet and re-dressed our blisters, we not only reflected on what we’d achieved, but also on the work of the charity we were all doing this for.

Kat from Young Lives vs Cancer told us the money raised by Metro could pay for at least 379 hours emotional support from one of the charity’s specialist social workers, or 306 nights in one of their Homes from Home which provide free places for families of young cancer patients to stay, close to hospital.

‘As a charity, we rely on the kindness of supporters to continue to be there for children and young people with cancer and their families, so the money raised from the Lifeline Campaign will make a huge difference,’ she added.

Meanwhile, Deputy editor Claie Wilson said: ‘Lifeline challenges are meant to be tough – and this one was especially so. Everyone who took it on did incredibly well, and we couldn’t be more proud of the team.’

‘To know they went the extra mile (literally) for such an amazing charity, shows just how important Young Lives vs Cancer is.’

Many thanks to Oliver’s Travels who kindly hosted Team Metro in Moonbeam Cottage, Dorset ahead of and after the challenge, and also to Jurassic Coast Holiday Homes for organising accommodation for us at the The Georgian House in Weymouth and Poxwell Manor West Wing.

There was a crunch of gravel and then the snap of our letter box opening. 

A small package landed on our door mat, the front inscribed with the neat cursive hand of my 26-year-old daughter, Jess. 

The card inside featured a rainbow with the words ‘just to send you a little smile’. The carefully padded envelope also contained a brooch, made by Jess’ friend, to raise funds for our health service. 

Jess was a fan of the NHS rainbows and all they represented during the Covid pandemic. A few months earlier, on her Instagram, she’d written, ‘Seeing all the rainbows in the windows for all the NHS workers, absolute heroes (words can’t do you justice).’

It was now summer, June 2020. In six months, Jess would be dead. 

Writing that word ‘dead’ still feels preposterous. More accurately, the events that led to losing my kind and inspirational daughter, and the fallout of her no longer ‘being’, would better be described as cataclysmic. 

I feel like my life has slipped out of focus. I no longer recognise myself, or the world I inhabit. 

Jess became ill shortly after sending those rainbow gifts. I have recounted this story many times. It still doesn’t make sense. It is stuffed with imponderables, what-ifs, guilt and longing. 

We all know the score; if you were ill when coronavirus hit our shores, you probably were not going to be treated in person. Online systems identified the severity of your complaint. 

Initially, Jess experienced abdominal pain. A telephone call, not a urine test, determined she was suffering from a UTI infection. No examination, just a prescription of antibiotics. 

But Jess did not get better. Her symptoms morphed and grew. Soon she was suffering from extreme fatigue and intermittent fevers. In the next few weeks she began speaking in a whispered voice, worried about further aggravating an irritated throat and persistent cough. 

Of course, she was told it was Covid. Except it wasn’t. Covid tests emphatically disputed this. 

And yet, the medics at her GP practice, clung onto the notion that the virus holding entire continents hostage was the route of Jess’ problem.

She was suffering from long Covid. Of course she was. What else could it be? She was a young, previously fit and healthy, female. 

As the days shortened and the temperature dropped, Jess experienced acute postnasal drip, vomiting, weight loss and the cough had now lasted five months. 

The practitioners Jess encountered within our precious NHS, the NHS she so vehemently supported, assumed she was not seriously ill. This assumption proved fatal. 

When Jess was finally diagnosed, after resorting to a private self-referral, she had stage 4 cancer of an unknown primary. Meaning, the cancer in her body was so rife and advanced no one was able to identify where the primary cancer originated. 

My bright, aspirational daughter was admitted to hospital, on the same day as her diagnosis.

Her oxygen requirements were such, she could not leave her bed. She remained in a room with a vista of an adjacent high rise, and, in late November and December, a sky washed slate grey. 

Weeping medics did not conceal the brutal truth; there was no hope, she should not hope. 

If there was a way of turning back time, I would. Believe me, I would defy all odds. I would, if I could. I would wrench protesting clock hands and yank them into a reality where my Jess lived.

Jess died three weeks after her diagnosis, on 20 December 2020. Vibrant and vital, with a journal full of her aspirations. There is no way to describe the devastation. It is raw, visceral. The greatest fear of any parent is losing their child. We are their creators and protectors. 

Jess died, in the small dark hours of the morning, while most people she knew gently slept. I wanted sirens to wail and rudely awaken everyone from their slumber. I wanted to claw out my traitorous, still beating heart. 

However, I conformed to the expected norm and did not succumb to a guttural need to pull at my hair and crawl the floor. I watched a doctor examine Jess’ lifeless body. 

Together with Jess’ boyfriend, we washed and dressed her. And then, I said my last, excruciating goodbye. Against instinct, I left my daughter.  

I had scribbled a note, beseeching anyone handling my precious girl to take care of her. From that moment on, I focused on functioning and attempting to live a life worthy of Jess. 

Jess’ cancer had been sneaky. It had multiplied aggressively, consuming her perfect body, her spine, liver, stomach, lungs, bones, and lymph nodes. It had been sneaky, but it had been leaving vital clues. 

The problem was, at Jess’ GP surgery, the doctors had made an incorrect, unsubstantiated diagnosis and had not deviated from that or looked for additional clues. 

Jess contacted her GP surgery on 20 occasions. She knew her body and she knew that body was failing her. 

Jess was fighting two battles; on the one hand coping with her debilitating symptoms and on the other persuading anyone to listen to her. 

When blood tests flagged a raised D-dimer and poor liver function the decision was to ‘wait and see’. Six weeks to wait and see.

I am sure those doctors did not anticipate that six weeks later we would be standing in a bitterly cold church yard, confronted with the impossible task of burying our daughter. 

We’re told Jess was unlucky; it is rare to have cancer so young. My response? 

Perhaps an appropriate retort to the ‘it’s rare’ argument is to say if the average life expectancy of a female in the UK is 83 years old then Jess missed 56 years of life. 

When one considers that 9% of all cancers diagnosed fall in the 25 – 49 age bracket that is a considerable loss of potential and consequential heartache.

I’d say that is worth caring about. 

Let’s stop calling cancer in young people rare and start calculating how many lost years. Let’s consider the devastation.

Now we come to the particularly gnarly concept that Jess was ‘unlucky’. Statistically speaking, one in two people will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime. 

Yes, Jess had rogue cells, uncontrollably growing and dividing, but the biggest problem was no one considered for a moment this might be the case. 

Jess was fit; she ran 5K. She didn’t smoke and rarely drank. She ate healthily. She wore sun cream and drank green tea, for goodness’ sake! 

She was bright and articulate, a satellite engineer by profession. Jess was unlucky because she was the subject of ‘unconscious bias’. She was not a high risk for cancer and therefore no one looked for cancer. 

The advice ‘when you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras’ (in other words when diagnosing a patient’s symptoms, common ailments should be considered as more probable than rare ones), came back to bite the GPs at Jess’ surgery in the proverbial backside. 

In hospital, a rigid oxygen mask pulled tightly across her nose and mouth, obscuring most of her pale, fine features yet accentuating the watchfulness in her confused eyes. My lovely Jess was the model patient. Sweet natured, cooperative, uncomplaining. 

However, she wanted her GP practice to understand the gravity of their mistakes. The significance of assuming there was nothing significantly wrong with her. If just one of the four doctors who dealt with Jess had taken a moment to think again and review her case afresh, then possibly, she may have been the lucky one. Or at least she may have stood a chance. She deserved that. 

To be told there is no hope, you will die, and soon, is the lowest of the low.

Like so many other parents, devastated by the death of their child, I would like to see positive change in Jess’ name. For the last three years a campaign for Jess’s Law has amassed in excess of 323,000 signatures. 

The proposal for Jess’s Law is simple: If, after three consultations, a patient’s condition remains unresolved, or the symptoms are escalating and/or they have no substantiated diagnosis, the patient’s case should be elevated for review and a new assessment made’. 

‘Three strikes and we rethink’. Sound judgment, one would think? 

Some may argue we have too many laws that a law should not be necessary to ensure GPs do something that is common sense, something that should happen anyway. 

Of course, that is right, if the correct systems are in place such regulation is irrelevant and unnecessary. 

Jess’s Law may appear to be stating the obvious, but our campaign demonstrates this is sadly not the case.

Countless accounts, shared with me, show clearly that GPs are not proactive in ‘thinking again’ when patients present with the same symptom or condition. Most commonly, I’ve heard that doctors do not deviate from their initial diagnosis, even when this is unsubstantiated. 

The result of not feeling empowered to critically rethink a case is cancers are often diagnosed too late. 

The horror of what happened to Jess and the incredible support for both the petition and our charity, Jessica Brady CEDAR Trust should spur action. 

We have met with both Matt Hancock and Steve Barclay and regularly meet with civil servants at the DHSC, but progress is slow.

‘Come on!’, I urge them. How many more Jess’ will it take?

Jess was right, many NHS workers are heroes, but they are also human. Fallible humans. 

There was a distinct absence of swishing capes and superpowers when Jess most needed them. 

She was met with plethora of platitudes and ‘I know best’ attitudes. We need to support our medical professionals to be curious, proactive and diagnose early. 

To stop other people experiencing the utter devastation of losing the people they love the most.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

‘We suspect you’ve got a cancer called lymphoma.’.

It was April 2023 and the news came with a wave of anxiety and fear for my future.

These are not the words any 23-year-old expects to hear, but they’re the ones that I still struggle to comprehend – even today.

Before my Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis, my life was flourishing. I was settling into a new life in London with my boyfriend and doing well in self-employment as a drama teacher and teaching assistant, alongside auditioning for jobs in musical theatre.

Then one day in November 2022, I woke up with scratches all over my body. But I didn’t actually think much of it at the time.

It happened again the next day. Then the next day after that.

Every morning brought a new one. I even joked with my boyfriend about our potentially haunted flat.

By December, my skin was intensely itchy and uncomfortable. I’d had a lingering cold for weeks, and I became hypersensitive to clothing labels and seams.

Over Christmas, I went home to where my parents live in Loughborough with a bruise the size of a tennis ball on the back of my leg from scratching. Concerned, Mum and Dad took me to the walk-in centre.

However, I was turned away, having been told by the doctor that the year’s viral infections were particularly bad, and receiving little advice about my skin.

Come January, I had unknowingly lost weight. The itching had become so intense that I couldn’t sleep, I was sweating randomly, and I found myself living in baggy clothing to avoid the unbearable sensation.

I kept going back and forth to the GP, reduced to tears on numerous occasions and missing days of work to get to the bottom of it.

Initially, I was told it was air pollution and given antihistamines, which didn’t help. Then, I was diagnosed with anxiety and referred to counselling. I couldn’t believe it could be anxiety; I had never experienced it before, and life had been going so well.

Despite my disbelief, I tried everything to alleviate the symptoms: meditation, hypnotherapy, counselling, acupuncture, and even Chinese herbal medicine. None of these treatments worked.

By February 2023, things had worsened to the point where I couldn’t work. So I returned home to live with my parents and found myself bedridden.

If I thought I had been let down by the healthcare system in London, I was in for an even bigger shock. The pattern persisted at home.

I kept going back and forth to the GPs, where my symptoms were dismissed as weird and not taken seriously. Each time I visited, I saw a different doctor and had to explain my case repeatedly.

Then on 23 February, I went to the hospital for a routine check-up due to my scoliosis, which involves an x-ray of my spine. This revealed a tumour near my heart.

When I asked the nurse about it, she assured me it was just shadowing. However, I was concerned due to my strange symptoms, so she said she’d follow up with the doctor and inform me via post.

I received a letter two weeks later saying my spine hadn’t changed since the last x-ray.

The night after I went to the hospital, though, I googled ‘lymphoma x-ray’ and watched a video on TikTok about a man who was diagnosed with the condition this way.

Overwhelmed, I went downstairs in tears and told my parents I had cancer. They comforted me and took me to the GP the next day. I showed the GP the x-ray and asked: ‘Do I have lymphoma?’

He firmly replied: ‘No’.

Months passed with no progress. I tried to move back to London and get back to work because being self-employed meant that I wasn’t getting paid.

It was in London that I finally got diagnosed. After persistent visits to the GP, I was eventually offered another x-ray – this time because I’d had a cough for six weeks.

I was actually told that ‘nothing will show up, and I think your other symptoms are down to anxiety’, but I was sceptical.

This x-ray led to a CT scan, which led to the words ‘you have cancer’ in April last year. Although scared, I remember feeling a weird sense of relief. I wasn’t going crazy, and I was finally being taken seriously.

I remember asking the doctor if I’d be alright, to which she replied: ‘I can’t tell you’. That’s when I was really scared.

Fortunately, the prognosis for Hodgkin’s lymphoma is very good, and I felt reassured after my first oncology consultation.

From that moment on, I cannot fault the care I’ve received – I just wish I was quicker to receive it.

Six months of chemotherapy has been tough and has taken a considerable toll on my body. My flexibility and strength has declined massively, which has impacted my ability to dance, and I also get pain in my ankles, particularly in the evenings.

I’m thankful that the chemotherapy is over now and that I have received the all-clear, but I’m still living with the side effects of chemo since finishing it in December.

When I was diagnosed, I made it my mission to raise awareness for cancer in young people. Before even starting treatment, I raised £7,200 for The Teenage Cancer Trust by shaving my head.

My Instagram page became my cancer diary, a place where I share the good, the bad, and the ugly – including what it’s like having a PICC line (the port in my arm that they delivered the chemo through), the stress of potential infertility, or the strains a diagnosis can have on relationships.

One thing I feel very strongly about is encouraging cancer survivors to still feel valued and validated while going through treatment. I want to keep it positive but realistic, and I hope that by sharing my story I have helped other young people like me.

I am thankful that my cancer responded quickly to chemotherapy and I am thankful for the incredible care I had at the Royal Marsden.

Most of all, I am thankful for the support I’ve received from friends, family, and charities like my Young Lives vs Cancer social worker and Teenage Cancer Trust.

A year on since my diagnosis, I am beginning to start back at work but it’s difficult because I can’t dance like I did before my diagnosis.

I question my future: do I give up on my dreams due to the unfair hand I’ve been dealt? And will employers hesitate to hire me because of my cancer history?

For anyone reading this who is experiencing any unknown, abnormal symptoms, please get it checked out. You know your own body.

And be persistent if you have to be. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

I will never forget those words. ‘I’m really sorry to say that Tia has cancer.’

They brought our world crashing down around us in an instant.

My daughter was just four years old and, after she hadn’t been well, we thought she might have anaemia.

Turns out, it was so much worse.

Tia had been fit and healthy from the moment she was born. She had never needed to go to the doctor’s, never had a cold or flu or a temperature.

Instead, she was a super active, bubbly and energetic little girl, who loved playing outside as much as she could.

Suddenly, out of the blue when she was four and at nursery – in April 2017 – Tia became unwell. She spiked a temperature and complained of neck pain.

She wasn’t herself; she was much quieter and didn’t want to play or eat much. This was so out of character for Tia.

Over the next six weeks, we had multiple trips to the GP and A&E – all to no avail. We spent so much time there, but didn’t feel like anything was getting done.

Then in June, Tia said, ‘Mummy, I really think I need to go to hospital.’

Followed by five worrying words: ‘There’s something wrong with me.’

We went back and, after I told the doctor what she’d said, she took some blood tests.

We were sent home, but later that afternoon, I got a call asking for us to go back in. It was then we received our cancer diagnosis.

We wanted Tia to know what was going on, so told her that some of her blood cells weren’t working properly.

Then the whirlwind began.

We were told that Tia needed to go to Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) so, a few days later we went by ambulance and found ourselves on Elephant Ward.

Tia had B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and treatment would take two years, starting with six months of chemotherapy, followed by a stage of treatment called delayed intensification – where they really ramp the chemotherapy up.

During this time, Tia missed a lot of nursery and wasn’t able to start school. My partner and I would switch between staying at the hospital with Tia and spending time at home with our younger son. We did that for a good two years.

Tia’s immunity dropped and she picked up every single bug you can possibly think of. I felt so helpless.

Thankfully, Tia finished her treatment and for a while, there were no problems. We were trying to get our lives back to some semblance of normality.

Then about a year later, Tia – then eight – complained of back pain and started having tremors. Doctors couldn’t find anything, so we tried to carry on as normal.

Soon, Tia got really sick. She had a temperature and was so weak. After a stint at our local hospital, we were devastated to find out that she had relapsed and the cancer had returned. It was very traumatic.

The hardest part was figuring out a way of telling Tia. I was trying to process the information myself so decided to keep it quiet until I had gathered my thoughts.

Yet, when I did finally find the words a couple of days later, and I explained to Tia that she needed to have more chemo and drugs, she just replied saying: ‘OK, no problem.’ I couldn’t believe her strength.

Second time around, Tia had immunotherapy as well as chemotherapy. All was going well, but about a year into her treatment we discovered that she had relapsed for a third time – this time, the cancer spreading to her central nervous system in her spinal cord.

Out of all the news we’d had, this one was the hardest to take. It meant there was a chance Tia could die. We went from being OK, to having really difficult conversations with doctors about losing our child.

Our next option was a bone marrow transplant, which is when your stem cells are replaced with healthy cells from a donor. Suddenly there was only a 20% chance that Tia was going to make it and words can’t describe how this made me feel.

Tia had her bone marrow transplant in December 2022 at GOSH – it was an extremely tough time with countless infections and illnesses. For a lot of it, Tia had to be in isolation with nurses who never left her bedside.

We had to spend Christmas at GOSH. We didn’t want to be there, but all the staff – including the Play Team, a charity-funded team who help children cope with their treatment – do their best to make sure it’s as happy as possible. Tia got so many presents!

After another few months in hospital, we were able to go home.

Since she was diagnosed aged four, she has spent more than half her life in hospital. She only knows this; she has nothing else to compare it to.

GOSH felt like the best place to be though; they really care and go above and beyond to make treatment as comfortable as possible. The Play Team especially is great – she loves slime, so they would always bring that for her.

Now 11, Tia is just trying to enjoy life and be a kid, despite all the obstacles. She’s back at school trying to catch up with everything and create some memories with her friends.

We are hoping that, by the end of this year, her body will have accepted the transplant and she can start coming off the various drugs she’s on.

We process everything that’s happened on the podcast that Tia and I have, ‘Me and Mini Me’. It’s about life, parenting and childhood cancer – it’s kind of therapy.

We thought it could be helpful if other people can get a perspective about kids living with cancer. But it’s not always serious, it’s also fun and giggly!

Tia is such an outgoing, confident and articulate girl – she has creative flair and loves sports and science.

She still has regular check-ups, but we are looking forward to spending more time together as a family.

Shaima and Tia are supporting GOSH Charity and its fundraising prize draw with Omaze – visit omaze.co.uk for more information

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

‘Please don’t give up on me, I’m not ready to die yet.’

I remember looking my doctor in the eyes and saying this to her. I was 13 and in the throes of my cancer treatment.

In May 2021, I was diagnosed with leukaemia and it was the worst day of my life. I didn’t think it could get worse, and then they told me it was incurable.

It felt as if the world had abandoned all hope. My family, however, had not – and neither had my doctors.

After I said that I didn’t want to die, the doctor looked back at me and replied: ‘If you want to keep going, we will keep looking. We won’t give up on you.’

And I stand here today, because of a new treatment plan that cured my leukaemia.

The first symptom I remember was tiredness. It was March 2021, when I went back to school after the second Covid-19 lockdown.

Things like walking to and from school took immense effort and some days I had to call my dad to pick me up. I would go to bed straight after our evening meal and it seemed like I could never get enough sleep.

This went on for two months. Then I came down with what we thought was a cold, but I couldn’t shake it. 

Before this, I was a generally healthy child and would normally get over things quickly. 

The GP prescribed antibiotics, but with no success, and I ended up at A&E a few days later. That’s when medical staff told me I had a bug and sent me home with more antibiotics.

During this time, I was so fed up with feeling poorly, and couldn’t believe a bug was making me feel so unwell.

I wasn’t getting any better, and my family was getting concerned. So we went back to the doctors a couple of weeks later and I was eventually given a blood test.

The next morning, the GP called and told us to go to A&E right away. At this point, we weren’t really that worried.

They ran various tests, including taking my oxygen levels and heart rate.

When I came out of the treatment room, I saw my name on the emergency board – it’s one of my most vivid memories.

It was the only name there. The shock hit me, and I found it hard to breathe.

The results came back saying I had pneumonia in both of my lungs.

I was rushed to intensive care, but they couldn’t understand why a healthy 12-year-old girl had pneumonia in the middle of summer. They had also tested me for other things like glandular fever, but tests came back negative.

After running a variety of blood tests and ultrasounds, my bone marrow was tested too. Eventually it was confirmed that I had cancer. T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia, to be precise – which is an aggressive form of blood cancer.

At first, the treatment plan followed the standard regime. But after a month, I moved to more intensive chemo, followed by a bone marrow transplant when chemo failed to work. 

But this, like all the treatments before, failed. I had run out of options. 

The only thing left was palliative care – a specialised medical care that focuses on providing relief from pain – which would keep me alive for only a few weeks or months. 

We were all devastated and couldn’t believe how quickly we had got to this point. Our options had run out and it felt like everything I had gone through had been for nothing.

Then in March 2022, my doctor at Sheffield found a new clinical trial at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and noticed I was eligible. It was like the stars had aligned. This trial seemed to completely come out of the blue.

For the first time, researchers had found a way to use a new gene editing technology called base editing to modify immune cells. The edited cells would then be given to me to find and target my cancerous cells. 

I was the first person in the world to benefit from this ground-breaking treatment.

It was amazing, and I was really hopeful, but also scared. I knew that there were no guarantees and this was a trial, so no one knew for definite what would happen to me and the side effects.

But I told my consultant that if this didn’t cure me, at least it might help them to cure other people. That was really important to me – it was my way of making a difference.

I was referred to GOSH and underwent more chemo and radiotherapy to prepare my body for the engineered cells to work their magic. For some parts of the trial, I was very ill and would sleep for multiple days; the cells also killed off all my healthy white blood cells, leaving me with no bone marrow. 

But the support system at GOSH was amazing, and I couldn’t have asked for more. I even made a friend while in hospital, who was around the same age as me. 

Remarkably, in 2022 I was cured of what was thought to be incurable leukaemia. It was a spark of hope for me and many other families around the world. 

When I was told that my leukaemia had gone, it was the best day of my life. I couldn’t stop crying happy tears. We had a big celebration and all the nurses came to celebrate too!

I’m so happy to be here now and am trying to raise as much awareness for childhood cancer, blood cancer and GOSH. 

Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (GOSH Charity) is currently raising money to help build a new Children’s Cancer Centre, which will help transform children’s cancer care and mean more children like me can access breakthrough treatments.

Everyone deserves to have the hope and opportunity that I had. Everyone deserves to survive cancer. 

I am now happy to be back at school and preparing for my GCSEs. I love hanging out with my friends and being able to play with my brother Liam and my dog Holly. 

I’m also delighted to share that in April this year, on my two-year GOSH anniversary, I was awarded Young Person of Courage and Young Person of the Year at the Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire awards.

If there’s one thing to learn from my journey it’s to not give up hope. I know many people are not as lucky as me and I am so grateful to be able to have this chance. 

Without my specialists, doctors, nurses and even cleaners that I befriended in hospital, none of my journey would have been possible.  

And for the people who can support those in need – whether it’s through a charity or taking the time to talk to a friend, family member or even a stranger – everyone has the power to help someone through the toughest time of their life. 

Everyone has the power to make a difference. 

To find out more about GOSH Charity’s Build it. Beat it. appeal to help build a new Children’s Cancer Centre at GOSH visit gosh.org/cancer

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

I’ll never forget the day my life changed forever. The day I lost my daughter. 

It was 11 November 2022. I was with Natalie, by her bedside in hospital, when she passed away from melanoma. She was only 28.   

My heart was, and still is, broken. But I am doing all I can to make sure we continue to honour her one final request: that she will always be remembered.  

Natalie was a beautiful daughter. She was always cheerful and funny. She was a wonderful sister to Nick (who is non-verbal and classically autistic) and the two of them truly had a special bond.  

She was also an incredible friend and an outstanding teacher. Her students adored her but really she had a huge impact on everyone who she came into contact with. 

Mostly, my girl was kind. She took part in many charity challenges, including a skydive, the Three Peaks Challenge and a half marathon. She was generous, not just with money and fundraising, but with her time and love.  

When she told me that a mole on her leg (that she’d always had) had started bleeding in July 2018, I was worried. 

We were just about to go on a week-long holiday to France, but I insisted we get it sorted before we left. I secured her a GP appointment for the following morning. The doctor examined the mole, and I did my best to reassure Natalie it would all be OK. 

However, while we were away in France, we got a phone call to say Natalie would need further investigations when she came home. By the end of August, she’d had the mole removed and it was sent off for testing.   

A couple of weeks later, we were told she needed to come back into the hospital to speak with the doctor. We knew then it wasn’t going to be an ‘everything is fine’ meeting, but as scared as we both were, we tried to stay positive.  

Sitting in their office, the consultant told us that it was melanoma – a type of skin cancer that can spread to other parts of the body – and my world stopped.

Natalie was 24. She’d been on holidays abroad in the sun but she had never been on a sunbed, nor had she ever burnt herself. 

Understandably, Natalie was terrified of the word ‘cancer’ and of what might lie ahead. But she was also determined to stay strong.   

Surgery was needed to remove any remaining cancer cells around the area where her mole had once been and doctors told her she would be closely monitored with regular scans. 

For a while, they continuously came up clear and life continued as normal. Then in December 2019, a scan showed a new lesion in her lung.   

I remember Natalie turning to me with tears in her eyes and saying, ‘Mum, it’s now Stage 4’. Lost for words, we hugged each other tightly and decided we were in this together.  

She was referred to The Royal Marsden, a world-leading cancer centre, for radiotherapy, consisting of three doses over three consecutive weeks. 

By the third week, scans showed that the lung lesion had significantly shrunk. We were ecstatic – the radiotherapy had worked. Everything was looking positive. 

Natalie continued to have regular monitoring scans and then, sadly, a year later, a new lung lesion was detected. 

This time, she was treated with targeted therapy, where the proteins that control how cancer cells grow, divide, and spread are directly targeted. This was administered in the form of a tablet every day.

For 18 months, things were once again fine and there were no lesions present on her scans. But then the cancer returned a third time, leaving immunotherapy as her only option.  

Unlike chemotherapy, which uses drugs to target and kill fast-growing cells, immunotherapy uses the body’s immune system to target cancerous cells. Natalie would begin having a combined dose of two drugs, every three weeks.  

She was amazing, never once complaining. She carried on with life and even continued to go back to work. 

She and I took part in The Banham Marsden March in May 2022, which saw us walk 15 miles together and raise just over £2,000. Crossing that finish line with my daughter will forever be one of my most special memories now. Natalie vowed to complete it every year. 

Unfortunately, just as she began her immunotherapy treatment that September, new lesions were detected on her brain and liver. The melanoma was attacking hard and fast, and Natalie began to deteriorate.  

She was taken ill at home, with worrying signs she could have swelling on the brain. We rushed her to the critical care unit, where doctors managed to get her stable. After a few days, however, we were told they couldn’t make her better. 

Natalie was amazingly brave and didn’t cry, complain or get angry, but accepted her fate.   

I was still in total shock. Everything had happened so quickly. Only a few days before she went into hospital for the last time she had been working at school as a teacher. Now, she was being moved to a ward and we were preparing to say goodbye. 

After four years of hard treatment, she passed away. Despite snow, around 240 people came to Natalie’s funeral to say goodbye. 

A further 250 people attended a separate church service her school put on just for her students and their parents. My heart ached to hear such wonderful things about her from both her students and colleagues. She would have been so humbled. 

Today, to keep Natalie’s memory alive, we are continuing to raise funds for The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. This will go towards the hospital’s melanoma research, so we can find new treatments for patients like Natalie all around the world.    

I’ve since taken part in The Banham Marsden March for a second time, only this time I had my husband, Natalie’s boyfriend and 35 of Natalie’s closest friends, colleagues and family members by my side and we raised £15,000.   

This year, I will walk the first 10 miles with a friend, and my husband and son will join me to walk the last five miles together.  

Taking part is not only an amazing way to raise awareness and funds, it’s also a chance to meet other people in the same position as you. 

When you’re grieving, there is a feeling of loneliness as often, people just don’t know what to say to you. I’ve now realised that I am not alone.   

To date, we’ve raised over £34,000 for The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity from friends and family members’ fundraising. 

Natalie’s cousins in Jersey ran the virtual London Marathon and organised a quiz night for over 100 people. Her friends, cousins and my husband have all taken part in half marathons and marathons, and I jogged 40 miles in January. And we all took part in a 10k run for the first anniversary of her passing, too.   

I also found Natalie’s bucket list shortly after she died, which has led me to signing up for a skydive in June this year – her birthday month – when she would have been turning 30. 

I just hope Natalie would be touched to see that we’re carrying on her legacy, and we want to make sure there are no more stories that end like hers. 

So many people have moles and don’t worry about them or get them checked, but melanoma is a real issue. It’s important to be aware of the signs and symptoms. It really can happen to anyone, even my baby girl.  

You can support Marie’s fundraising in memory of Natalie, or sign up to The Banham Marsden March 2024 here. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

As I come up to the final stretch of the 5k course, I can see that my little brother, Charlie, has already crossed the finish line.

‘Here we go,’ I think, rolling my eyes and chuckling to myself.

In our family, Saturday mornings are for parkruns and every week he and I battle it out to see who can complete the course in the fastest time. 

As the older sibling you would think I’d have it in the bag, but Charlie, 16, has always been a fighter. He certainly doesn’t make it easy for me. And honestly, I love that.

Seeing him absolutely dominate the other athletes in his age category makes me so proud I could burst because to look at him, you would never know he battled cancer, but he has. And I am so grateful he’s come out victorious. 

I remember the day in 2010 when he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia – a type of cancer that affects the blood – like it was yesterday.

Charlie was just three-years-old and had been complaining of a sore throat for a couple of days.

At first, my parents didn’t think it was anything more than a severe bout of tonsillitis, but after seeing two separate GPs, followed by several nights in hospital, we all began to suspect something bad was going on.

Of course, nothing ever prepares you for a diagnosis like that – it was a complete shock to the whole family, especially my sister and I. I was only 10 at the time myself, so my only understanding was that cancer leads to death. I feared the worst. 

After that, life completely changed.

Before the diagnosis I would see my friends every week, I played football for a local team, had swim lessons every Friday and was part of a number of other after school clubs. Now, all our lives revolved around doctors’ appointments, chemotherapy, and multiple blood transfusions.

My parents spent a lot of time away at the hospital too, meaning my sister and I would often stay with our grandparents. 

The hardest thing though was seeing Charlie decline so rapidly. He lost his hair, was sick a lot of the time and, in many ways, he became a shadow of his former self.

He had always been our happy little brother. He was cheeky and cheerful, but now he was quiet and had no interest in playing even when we brought his favourite computer games, films and toys. It was heartbreaking.

After five weeks Charlie was deemed fit enough to come home, but because his treatment had left his immune system incredibly vulnerable, we once again had to find a new ‘normal’.

That meant missing out on big social events such as birthday parties or trips to public play spaces so that we could distance ourselves from potential viruses, diseases, and infections as even something as simple as a common cold would be enough to hospitalise Charlie. 

Personally, I found it forced me to mature a lot quicker as I had to quickly learn how to deal with both children and adults who would stare at Charlie – who had no hair and a nose tube – in public, as well as accept how things now had to cater for his health first.

But I never once blamed him for any of it. All I wanted was for my baby brother to be OK.

Thankfully, in 2014, we learned that his treatment was coming to an end, and doctors were hopeful that he would soon be in remission.

However, in order to regain some of the strength that chemotherapy took from him, doctors advised Charlie to take up exercise, which is when we began attending parkrun events.

Naturally, it didn’t take long for our competitive streak to take over and we were soon going each week to battle it out. I just loved seeing Charlie gradually get stronger.

Still, as a family we wanted to mark the huge challenge he had overcome. That’s when my parents remembered the charity, Rays of Sunshine.

Established in 2003, aims to brighten the lives of seriously ill children in the UK by granting magical wishes and during one of his hospital stays, Charlie and my parents were introduced to them.

We got back in touch and, when one of their staff asked Charlie for his wish, it took him less than 30 seconds to come up with an answer.

‘I want to swim with killer whales!’ He announced proudly. I just burst out laughing – that was the Charlie I knew and loved. Adventurous and completely crazy!

Unfortunately for him, but unsurprisingly for the rest of us, there was nowhere that would allow a six-year-old to swim with killer whales. So, Rays of Sunshine organised the next best thing – Charlie would get to swim with dolphins in Florida.

I think we were all a little shocked when we were told Charlie’s wish had been granted, but as we already had a holiday to the States booked, they’d arranged for us to spend a day at Discovery Cove as part of our trip.

In August 2016, we all flew to Orlando, Florida for the holiday of a lifetime. We were so excited that I don’t think any of us slept the night before our swim but the exhaustion was worth it to see Charlie speed through the water alongside. 

He was not only back to his old self but he seemed to have a whole new level of confidence. He was louder, cheekier and on top of the world.  

For that reason alone the whole day was magical. Not to mention that, aside from swimming with dolphins, we went snorkelling with other fish and near sharks and even saw a killer whale, just like Charlie wanted.

My favourite memories of that trip though are the moments when just the five of us were playing stupid games on the beach. It had been so long since we’d got to just be a family and have fun together, that it’s something I now truly treasure.

Since that holiday, I’m pleased to say, Charlie’s health has gone from strength to strength. He went into remission shortly after the holiday and received the all clear in 2020, and was fully discharged this year.

Rays of Sunshine gave my family memories to treasure forever

Of course, we kept attending parkrun as much as we could and have now completed a combined 500 events, though this year I am taking things one step further and will be taking part in the London Marathon. And there was really only one charity that I wanted to do it for.

Rays of Sunshine gave my family memories to treasure forever but that holiday won’t have come cheap – I dread to think what a trip like that would cost now. So, I am running to help other families make magical memories like we did.

I’ve been training daily and Charlie has been by my side every step of the way. And while he won’t be taking part with me, he’ll be cheering me along on the big day. 

I’m just so grateful that he’s still here and that he’ll get to see me as I cross that finishing line.  

To support Joe’s London Marathon challenge and help grant more wishes to children like Charlie, please visit his JustGiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/joe-bennett11

‘Kids your age don’t get cancer.’ ‘There’s nothing to worry about’ ‘Calm down.’

These are just some of the things young people aged 16-24 with cancer have been told. This is despite 12 children a day being diagnosed with cancer in the UK, ccording to the charity Young Lives Vs Cancer (YLVC), who work to support young cancer patients and their families. 

Figures also reveal that children and young adults end up having to visit their GP far more than older cancer patients, before getting their diagnosis.

The findings from the National Cancer Patient Experience Survey (CPES), add that over two thirds of youngsters with cancer said they were forced to visit their doctor more than once before finally receiving their diagnosis, with nearly half seeing their GP three or more times before being sent to hospital.

With today marking Teenage and Young Adult Cancer Awareness Month, charities such as YLVC are determined to shine a light on the shocking difficulties and frightening hurdles children and young adults face when it comes to cancer. 

As the cost of living crisis worsens in the UK, their research has found that one of the biggest barriers for families is the cost of reaching hospital appointments In fact, the costs of cancer can reach an extra £700 a month on average. 

What’s more, 15% of 16-24 year-olds said they needed, but did not receive, any information about the financial help or benefits they might be entitled to. 

On top of that, one in four reported they were not able to get emotional support at home from community services like district nurses, paid carers, mental health support or physiotherapists). 

‘Kids your age don’t get cancer’

Abi Holly was 14 when she noticed a strange lump on her hand. Worried, she went to her GP to seek answers, who sent her to a specialist. But she was told ‘kids your age don’t get cancer’ by the health expert, who had scoffed at her fears. He said the lump was probably just fatty tissue.

But, two years later, it was still there and growing larger. Another scan and doctors admitted the lump was cancer. Abi would need urgent surgery to remove the lump.

Abi told Metro: ‘I ended up having to drop out of college because I just couldn’t keep up with my illness weighing on my mind, and I couldn’t use my heavily-bandaged right hand for a long time after surgery.’ Even once she was declared cancer-free, Abi was left fraught with worry about losing support.

She added: ‘While having cancer had been hard, I found the period after I was declared cancer-free absolutely horrific. I felt like a toy that had been dropped: that’s it, move on, we’ll see you in three months for a check up.’ 

‘I sounded like a robot telling my friends at school’

Ruby-Jo Sneed juggled her Year 11 prom and GCSE exams while she battled both skin cancer and a brain tumour. When speaking to Metro about her diagnosis, she spoke about the desperate feeling for the disease to be ‘ripped’ away from her body.

‘I started crying and mum held my hand’, Ruby-Jo had said. ‘My dad cried as well, that was the first time I’d seen a man cry. There was nothing he could do to help me, he felt hopeless.

‘For me, I felt fed up with a journey I didn’t ask for. No child should have to know what the word ‘cancer’ means. Looking back, I can’t believe I was so strong. But I had to be, I had no other choice.

‘I did think “am I going to die?” but never asked this question out loud as I didn’t want to scare my parents. I felt like I had to be strong for them so they could be strong for me. I sounded like a robot telling my friends at school, I wasn’t crying or anything. It was very surreal, I didn’t know what to think.’

Ruby-Jo had a support worker from Young Lives vs Cancer as she tried to be a ‘normal teenager’ while battling cancer. Today, she’s cancer-free but has to be extra careful with any strange lumps or staying in the sun too long.

‘I’ve blamed my dad for somehow giving his cancer to me’

In a tragic turn of events, Ainsley Foster was diagnosed with a brain tumour just two weeks after colon cancer took his dad.

The 21-year-old had been clearing his father’s house when he was struck down by a sudden severe migraine. Ainsley was in so much pain that he had to put a blanket over his head to block out any light. He rushed to a GP but was told the migraine was likely caused by stress. Ainsley went to A&E a few days later where he collapsed due to the pain. Urgent tests revealed he had a brain tumour.

Ainsley told Metro: ‘ Having seen what cancer did to Dad, my first question was: ‘How long have I got left?’ I know it sounds completely farfetched, but I often wonder if somehow he knew about my condition before anyone else did. In my darkest moments – and I know this is impossible – I’ve even blamed him for somehow giving his cancer to me.

‘Thankfully, I was told the cancer looked treatable so at least that filled me with some confidence.’

Ainsley underwent surgery and was put into an induced-coma after his brain tumour hemorrhaged. Recovery was hard and the young man’s vision had been severely impacted. But as Ainsley underwent chemotherapy, he had help on hand from Eve, a support worker. 

He added: ‘She liaised with my university to relay my situation, played puzzles to pass the time and was just really lovely. It felt like she was a second mum to me, especially after just losing Dad.

‘A lot of people are affected by cancer and the best way to demystify it is to talk about it. That’s why I’m sharing my story because I want people to know that – unlike my first thought after my diagnosis – life can go on.’

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk 

Share your views in the comments below.

Most people are relieved when they get the phone call to say they are cancer-free. 

When the hospital rang to tell me in the spring of 2020, my mum burst into tears, overjoyed. But I quietly slipped away to my bedroom.

I cried because I knew all the support, care and routine I had been given while being treated was about to disappear. 

I was 14 when I first noticed a lump in my right hand, in the webbing between my ring and middle fingers. 

My GP referred me to a specialist who laughed – actually laughed – and said: ‘Kids your age don’t get cancer’ and told me it was probably fatty tissue. Then he took my name off the urgent treatment list.

The man had 40 years of experience, I had every reason to trust him. So, for the next two years, I thought nothing about the weird lump in my hand. I would wiggle it around, which became my  party trick. I used to draw a circle around it to keep track of how big it was growing. 

It wasn’t until March 2020 that the hospital got in touch to say they could squeeze me in for surgery to remove it. 

Despite the pandemic, my surgery was plain sailing, and I went home to wait for my results in six weeks. 

Instead, I got a call that same week and was told to come back to the hospital immediately.

Even before we got there, I knew. 

My mum, nan, surgeon and I all squashed into a room the size of a cupboard and the surgeon drew out a handprint. He described where my tumour had been, and its size, and confirmed that yes, it was cancer.

Everything goes silent when you hear that word. The surgeon waffled on about how I’d need surgery to explore and remove the surrounding tissue in case the cancer had spread, but at that point he didn’t know the name of it, its grade or its stage.

I don’t think I really took it in. 

Downstairs, in the hospital Subway, my mum was a mess, shaking and spilling her drink, but I was weirdly calm, picking out my sandwich toppings. 

Even now, there are days when I can’t quite get my head around what has happened to me. From the moment I was diagnosed to the call telling me I was in remission, it was eight weeks.

I ended up having to drop out of college because I just couldn’t keep up with my illness weighing on my mind, and I couldn’t use my heavily-bandaged right hand for a long time after surgery. 

Those eight weeks between having surgery and getting the all clear were a blur of contact and information, going back and forth to the hospital for appointments, tests and scans of every kind imaginable. It was oddly reassuring: there was always something to do or focus on, and I was being monitored all the time.

But when everything stops, all of that support and structure goes away. 

While having cancer had been hard, I found the period after I was declared cancer-free absolutely horrific.

I felt like a toy that had been dropped: that’s it, move on, we’ll see you in three months for a check up. 

When I tried to go back to college in September 2020, everything was online and I ended up dropping out again.

I didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone about what was going on. I’m a closed book at the best of times, and my parents had already been through the worry that they might lose their child.

To make matters worse, at 15, none of my friends knew anyone with cancer – they had asked if I would die, and when, and that was about it in terms of their support.

It was my social worker who finally nagged me to get help and to talk to someone. She had been assigned to me when I was first diagnosed (it is standard if you get diagnosed with cancer under the age 16).

I was reluctant; as soon as you speak to a cancer charity it all gets very real, and my experience had been so unusual, I didn’t think I wanted any help.

Eventually she put me in touch with the charity Young Lives vs Cancer. 

It provides support for anyone aged 0-25 who has been diagnosed with cancer. This could be anything from financial grants to help a young person afford trips to hospital, or advocacy on their behalf. 

I loved their focus on accessible, tailored help – because everyone experiences this disease differently.

The team emailed right away to offer me online advice, resources and calls, and put me in contact with others my age who had been through something similar. 

People try to sympathise when you tell them you have cancer, but talking to someone who actually knows changes everything. Even if you have nothing in common apart from that one thing, you’ve all been told: I’m really sorry, you have cancer, and that creates a life-long bond. 

I am now 21 and volunteer for the charity. A group of us meet up every two months and discuss how hospitals and health workers can change and improve to support young people. 

Personally, I wish every hospital had a paediatric cancer unit (I was often the youngest in my hospital’s waiting room by about 70 years) and I’d like to see all young cancer patients treated respectfully, as too often, health workers talk to parents instead of the patient. Young people understand what is happening, so please talk to us. 

And obviously, don’t laugh at us when we come in at 14, concerned that we could have this disease. 

Crucially, there needs to be more awareness and support for young people long after they have received a cancer diagnosis.

My life for those eight weeks was defined by cancer, and still is, really. When you go into remission, there’s an expectation that you should go back to school or college, back into normal life, and just carry on as though nothing has happened. 

You can’t, and navigating the world after having a serious illness is scary and complex. I need to be able to say that to people who instantly know what I mean.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

There’s one moment I’ll never forget from when Dad was on his deathbed.

While in and out of consciousness, he suddenly sat up and pointed at me – without saying a word. A few seconds later, his head and arm dropped, then he drifted back to sleep.

Was he trying to tell my three older siblings to look after me because I’m the youngest? Or was it something more sinister?

After 15 hours of first arriving at A&E, he was gone. Then, within two weeks, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour at just 21 years old.

I know it sounds completely farfetched, but I often wonder if somehow he knew about my condition before anyone else did. In my darkest moments – and I know this is impossible – I’ve even blamed him for somehow giving his cancer to me.

It was August 2018 when Dad first sat me down and told me he had colon cancer. He was a man of few words, but I got the impression he just wanted to get on with things and not worry his four children.

Towards the end of his life around the start of 2019, he had lost a lot of weight, was very lethargic, couldn’t keep any food down and had to have a stoma bag fitted.

On 18 April, I was at my brother’s house when we got the call from my uncle that Dad was now in A&E and we needed to get there immediately as he wouldn’t be around for much longer. It was absolutely devastating news.

When we got there, doctors told us he was in a lot of pain so he was heavily sedated. Dad passed away in the early hours of the next day, surrounded by all his loved ones.

It was actually his birthday on 22 April so we gathered for drinks to celebrate his life. A week later, we were clearing out his house ahead of his funeral.

That’s when I started to get sudden severe migraines. At one point, it hurt to look at anything in the light so I was shielding my head under a blanket.

My brothers thought I was just joking around, but I had honestly never experienced such an intense pain like it before and knew something was wrong. Even though I hate going to the doctor, my mum could see the pain I was in and urged me to go.

That’s when the GP suggested it was just stress after losing my dad so recently, so they recommended regular painkillers. Feeling reassured, I went home.

But the migraines persisted. Within three or four days, they became worse so I went to the doctor again, who said to go to A&E to try to get some scans done.

So Mum and great aunty took me to the local hospital, but right before we approached the hospital doors, I went all weak in my legs. I said to my mum: ‘I think I’m going to collapse.’

The next thing I remember was waking up on a trolley inside the hospital, but I was numb on one side of my body. I was panicking and had no idea what to do.

Doctors prioritised me for a CT scan and that same day they told me they found a mass on my brain in the pituitary gland. I didn’t know what this meant but I was trying to put two and two together.

Surely it couldn’t be cancer, I thought. I was only 21.

We had to do a biopsy, but it came back inconclusive. That’s when they told me that the fluid in my brain was not getting through due to the massive blockage so they would need to do an operation, which is when they confirmed the tumour was cancerous.

As soon as the doctors said that word to me, I was in shock. I felt emotionless.

Having seen what cancer did to Dad, my first question was: ‘How long have I got left?’ Thankfully, I was told the cancer looked treatable so at least that filled me with some confidence.

I started chemotherapy to try to shrink the tumour in the first week of May but during that very first session, my mum noticed something was very wrong. I was still experiencing the migraines, but I was extremely lethargic and sleeping 14 hours a day, lost about two stone, felt incredibly unwell and dipped in and out of consciousness.

So she flagged it with a nurse, who got a consultant and I ended up having an emergency MRI. That’s when doctors found that my tumour had haemorrhaged, which meant that we had to scrap the chemotherapy and go straight into surgery to stop the bleeding.

The risk of complications or even death had increased exponentially. My mum told me later that nurses were crying because they didn’t think I’d make it out alive.

Remarkably, after about eight hours in theatre, I came through it and was put in an induced coma for a couple of days.

When I woke up – I don’t remember this, but – Mum said I kept trying to figure out what was going on with the catheter that had been attached to me. Apparently that’s a great way to cut the tension after almost dying!

The haemorrhage meant that I actually lost my vision, so my mum had to help me with certain things like eating or getting in the shower. Thankfully, my vision eventually came back by June.

After a few days, I got moved to the high dependency unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, then to the Freeman Hospital to properly start chemo. Ward 34 there really left a huge impact on me.

That’s where I met Eve, my social worker from Young Lives vs Cancer, who I have the highest regard for. She liaised with my university to relay my situation, played puzzles to pass the time and was just really lovely.

It felt like she was a second mum to me, especially after just losing Dad.

My treatment was really intense. I had 24-hour chemotherapy for around seven weeks, then I ended up having proton beam therapy (a type of radiotherapy that targets cancer cells) for a couple of months in Essen, Germany. 

Once back in England by December 2019, I was due for an MRI to check if the cancer was all gone.

I remember being in the waiting room to get the results with my consultant and turning to my mum and saying: ‘This will be make or break’.

As soon as I was called into the room, the consultant immediately put me out of my misery and said that there was no cancer present in any of the scans.

I just burst into tears – and again while I rang the bell in the hospital to announce to everyone that I was in remission. I thanked the consultant profusely and even get emotional now thinking about it.

Today, I am officially cancer-free. There have been ups and downs since initially getting my diagnosis – and even after I was in remission, especially when it came to my mental health.

It’s through organisations like Young Lives vs Cancer and the Teenage Cancer Trust that helped me process such a huge ordeal. They connected me with people my age going through the same thing as me – and that was invaluable.

We’d do fun activities together like painting or workshops on how to manage stress. A big part of that is being able to laugh and joke around with people who just get it.

When I look back at my cancer journey, I feel thankful for everyone I’ve met through this awful illness. I wish cancer didn’t take away Dad but I know he’d be proud of me for getting through it.

A lot of people are affected by cancer and the best way to demystify it is to talk about it. That’s why I’m sharing my story because I want people to know that – unlike my first thought after my diagnosis – life can go on.

As told to James Besanvalle

For more information about Young Lives Vs Cancer, go to their website here.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

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I’m not sure which memory sticks out the most.

Walking slowly and thoughtfully through the summer-scorched grass as the sun began to set.

Or maybe it was the glorious sight earlier in the day of the iconic Durdle Door peaking out as we walked down Lulworth Cove towards the majestic rock formation.

Perhaps it was when we looked up at that first enormous hill that spanned the horizon – and realised that the ‘ants’ on it were actually people clambering up.

Of course, one I definitely won’t forget was when we broached our first 12.5km pit stop, and were welcomed by family and friends, blaring music and treats amd enough sugary sweets to make Willy Wonka sick.

The Jurassic Coast is an undeniable beautiful place to explore.

The area was crowned a World Heritage Site in 2001 due to its outstanding geological significance and remarkable natural beauty, and actually stretches as far as115km from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset.

In 2018 I was lucky enough to spend a day covering 58km of it – and would honestly say it was an adventure I’d wholeheartedly reccommend. (Even though the blisters at the end were pretty epic in themselves.)

Yes, it’s hard work – there are some very steep hills, but the views (oh my goodness, the views) and the sense of the achievement having hiked our way along the Purbeck Hills from Corfe Castle towards Weymouth way, is hard to match.

For me, the key was having a clear route, great company, decent pit stops – and, of course, a good pair of walking boots.

And I can’t wait to do it again this year as part of Metro’s Lifeline campaign in support of Young Lives vs Cancer, a charity that helps families across the UK impacted by cancer.

Organised by Ultra Challenge, the same team who were behind my first Jurassic coast walk, our adventure will set off on Saturday May 18, from the beautiful Corfe Castle and walkers can choose between a 25km route which ends at Bucknowle Farm or 58km with a finish line in Weymouth.

With rest stops every 12.5km, there’s plenty to keep trekkers energised, from pastries and fruit to sweets and as much tea as you can handle. Not forgetting a decent meal at the halfway point and finish line, as well as a well-deserved glass of fizz.

While there’s no doubt it’s a glorious – albeit long – day, there’s also something extra special about doing something like this while knowing you’re helping others.

And with 12 children being diagnosed every day, every penny raised counts.

If you would like to join us, click here.

As I woke up, my mum, Katy, was already standing in my bedroom, holding small plastic containers.

‘Here you go,’ she said, handing me one of the little cups. ‘It says you’ve got to spit into it on an empty stomach.’

As she left my bedroom to give my siblings, Libby, then 13, and Harry, 11, one too, I felt surprisingly OK about what was about to happen. 

The time had come to take the tests that would determine if my siblings and I had also inherited a rare genetic condition called Li Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS).

It was late 2018 and I was 16 years old. A year earlier my grandad, Vic, my dad’s dad, had been diagnosed with LFS. It meant that he was the carrier of a rare hereditary cancer preposition that raises the risk of developing cancer by up to 90% by the age of 60.

Researchers believe that a few thousand people in the UK have LFS, although only between 500 and 700 people have an official diagnosis. 

His news, after a diagnosis of prostate cancer, meant that my dad, Kevin, was tested too and in early 2018, he was also discovered to have the gene.

Which then meant that me and my siblings were more at risk too. We wanted to be tested and know for sure. 

It also left us wondering whether my five-year-old sister, Ella, who had died of a brain tumour back in 2009 when I was seven, had the gene.

So now, me and my two remaining siblings had been sent these plastic containers from experts at The Nuffield Hospital in Oxford in which we had to provide a saliva sample.

I screwed the top on and handed it back to Mum, and she posted them back to the hospital.

In January 2019, me, Mum, Dad, Libby and Harry went to get the results.

We had talked about it a lot as a family since Grandad and Dad’s diagnoses, and knew it was likely we would also be impacted.

But still I felt nervous as we went into the doctor’s room and sat down.

‘You all carry the LFS gene,’ the doctor explained to Libby, Harry and myself.

She talked us through what this meant and explained that we’d be referred to Great Ormond Street Hospital for regular scans.

I’d prepared myself for this news, so I didn’t break down in tears. In fact, we all stayed really positive. 

At least we knew and would be regularly monitored. Cancer wouldn’t take us by surprise in its late stages. 

Part of me felt relieved, too, that we were all in the same boat, and we could support each other through this.

In spring 2019, we met with the Oncology Consultant at Great Ormond Street, who had started an observation study for Children with LFS.

We had full body MRI scans and they discovered Harry had a brain tumour. He was just 12 at the time.

‘Fortunately, the tumour is on the edge of his brain so it is in a more favourable position to remove,’ explained the consultant.

We all broke down in tears.

It was terrifying – and for Mum and Dad, it was a painful reminder of how they’d lost Ella.

I was very young at the time and don’t remember it all. But what I do remember was devastating.

When Ella was diagnosed as a baby, the doctors were pessimistic. She’d had surgery to operate on the tumour but they told my parents that she may not survive the next 24 hours.

But she did. And every day was a blessing.

She lived a happy life until she was five, even though none of the doctors thought she would make her first birthday.

Now, we’d received news that Harry had a brain tumour too.  

Our doctor explained that they would operate to remove the growth and in November 2019, Harry had the operation and thankfully made a full recovery.

Afterwards, we continued to be monitored regularly for signs of cancer. It was scary, thinking about what each scan might reveal, but I told myself that at least, if there was anything untoward, it would be caught early.

Then, in August 2022, when Dad was 45, during one of those routine scans that doctors discovered he had aggressive prostate cancer. He opted to have a complete removal.

Just months later, February 2023, they found cancer in his left leg. They performed surgery and the cancer was removed.

But in October, Dad discovered that the cancer had returned in his prostate area. We all felt deflated.

Now Dad’s having hormone treatment and he’s started radiotherapy for six weeks. As always, my parents are staying upbeat. 

Obviously we have periods when things are hard and it all feels a lot. We have our dark days but we are a strong family and we try to keep as positive as possible. 

Dad’s brother, my uncle Simon, also has the gene too and in March, he will be running The Ridgeway, an 87-mile path from Avebury to Ivinghoe Beacon, over three days to raise money for Cancer Research UK. Dad’s hoping to join him for the last mile, if he’s well enough.

As for me, there’s a 90%-100% chance that I will develop breast cancer as a result of the gene.

I’m only 21 but I’ve decided to take preventative measures and have put my name down for a mastectomy. 

I am currently on the waiting list and should be in surgery by April. 

I know it might impact me breastfeeding children if I become a mum one day, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s a small price to pay for my health.

This January, I was recruited onto a trial led by Professor Sarah Blagden and supported by the George Pantziarka TP53 Trust. The trial looks into whether a drug that is currently available for diabetes can help reduce the cancer risk in people with LFS.

I feel very grateful to be on this trial, which involves taking a drug called Metformin daily and being monitored. Hopefully it will help my family and others find a way to prevent the disease.

It’s a five-year trial and I’m still quite young, so if it works, it could mean that, in the future, we could all be taking a drug that could help to prevent us getting cancer. 

I can’t begin to imagine how hard it is for Mum having lost one daughter to a brain tumour and then discovering that her other children are more at risk too, but she’s the most positive and strong person I know.

Thanks to her and Dad’s support, I am confident we will get through this together.

As told to Rachel Tompkins.

To donate, visit justgiving.com

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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I will never forget those words. ‘I’m really sorry to say that Tia has cancer.’

They brought our world crashing down around us in an instant.

My daughter was just four years old and, after she hadn’t been well, we thought she might have anaemia.

Turns out, it was so much worse.

Tia had been fit and healthy from the moment she was born. She had never needed to go to the doctor’s, never had a cold or flu or a temperature.

Instead, she was a super active, bubbly and energetic little girl, who loved playing outside as much as she could.

Suddenly, out of the blue when she was four and at nursery – in April 2017 – Tia became unwell. She spiked a temperature and complained of neck pain.

She wasn’t herself; she was much quieter and didn’t want to play or eat much. This was so out of character for Tia.

Over the next six weeks, we had multiple trips to the GP and A&E – all to no avail. We spent so much time there, but didn’t feel like anything was getting done.

Then in June, Tia said, ‘Mummy, I really think I need to go to hospital.’

Followed by five worrying words: ‘There’s something wrong with me.’

We went back and, after I told the doctor what she’d said, she took some blood tests.

We were sent home, but later that afternoon, I got a call asking for us to go back in. It was then we received our cancer diagnosis.

We wanted Tia to know what was going on, so told her that some of her blood cells weren’t working properly.

Then the whirlwind began.

We were told that Tia needed to go to Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) so, a few days later we went by ambulance and found ourselves on Elephant Ward.

Tia had B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and treatment would take two years, starting with six months of chemotherapy, followed by a stage of treatment called delayed intensification – where they really ramp the chemotherapy up.

During this time, Tia missed a lot of nursery and wasn’t able to start school. My partner and I would switch between staying at the hospital with Tia and spending time at home with our younger son. We did that for a good two years.

Tia’s immunity dropped and she picked up every single bug you can possibly think of. I felt so helpless.

Thankfully, Tia finished her treatment and for a while, there were no problems. We were trying to get our lives back to some semblance of normality.

Then about a year later, Tia – then eight – complained of back pain and started having tremors. Doctors couldn’t find anything, so we tried to carry on as normal.

Soon, Tia got really sick. She had a temperature and was so weak. After a stint at our local hospital, we were devastated to find out that she had relapsed and the cancer had returned. It was very traumatic.

The hardest part was figuring out a way of telling Tia. I was trying to process the information myself so decided to keep it quiet until I had gathered my thoughts.

Yet, when I did finally find the words a couple of days later, and I explained to Tia that she needed to have more chemo and drugs, she just replied saying: ‘OK, no problem.’ I couldn’t believe her strength.

Second time around, Tia had immunotherapy as well as chemotherapy. All was going well, but about a year into her treatment we discovered that she had relapsed for a third time – this time, the cancer spreading to her central nervous system in her spinal cord.

Out of all the news we’d had, this one was the hardest to take. It meant there was a chance Tia could die. We went from being OK, to having really difficult conversations with doctors about losing our child.

Our next option was a bone marrow transplant, which is when your stem cells are replaced with healthy cells from a donor. Suddenly there was only a 20% chance that Tia was going to make it and words can’t describe how this made me feel.

Tia had her bone marrow transplant in December 2022 at GOSH – it was an extremely tough time with countless infections and illnesses. For a lot of it, Tia had to be in isolation with nurses who never left her bedside.

We had to spend Christmas at GOSH. We didn’t want to be there, but all the staff – including the Play Team, a charity-funded team who help children cope with their treatment – do their best to make sure it’s as happy as possible. Tia got so many presents!

After another few months in hospital, we were able to go home.

Since she was diagnosed aged four, she has spent more than half her life in hospital. She only knows this; she has nothing else to compare it to.

GOSH felt like the best place to be though; they really care and go above and beyond to make treatment as comfortable as possible. The Play Team especially is great – she loves slime, so they would always bring that for her.

Now 11, Tia is just trying to enjoy life and be a kid, despite all the obstacles. She’s back at school trying to catch up with everything and create some memories with her friends.

We are hoping that, by the end of this year, her body will have accepted the transplant and she can start coming off the various drugs she’s on.

We process everything that’s happened on the podcast that Tia and I have, ‘Me and Mini Me’. It’s about life, parenting and childhood cancer – it’s kind of therapy.

We thought it could be helpful if other people can get a perspective about kids living with cancer. But it’s not always serious, it’s also fun and giggly!

Tia is such an outgoing, confident and articulate girl – she has creative flair and loves sports and science.

She still has regular check-ups, but in 2024 we are looking forward to spending more time together as a family.

Shaima and Tia are supporting GOSH Charity and its fundraising prize draw with Omaze, who are giving away a luxurious countryside retreat in the Cotswolds worth over £3 million – visit omaze.co.uk for more information

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

MORE: New cancer treatment improves chances of survival for sick children

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MORE: ‘Our son was just a baby when he was diagnosed with cancer’

‘Some days the decision was “are we paying rent or are we putting food on the table?” No family should ever have to make that choice,’ says mum Jasmin Sarll firmly.

Her life was turned upside down after her son, Hugo, was diagnosed with a rare liver cancer at just two-years-old. Jasmin focused all her energy into making sure he had the treatment and care he so desperately needed. But, soon, she faced another problem: money.

‘My partner Mike was a mechanic and had to take sick leave when Hugo got his diagnosis,’ Jasmin, 30, tells Metro.co.uk. 

‘We were driving hours to take Hugo to hospital and had childcare for our two other boys to think of as well. Mike’s wages dropped from £2,500 a month to £400 a month as that’s what Statutory Sick pay was. We couldn’t survive on that.

‘We had to start a GoFundMe because our expenses were extortionate.’

Huge had been diagnosed with hepatoblastoma – a cancer of the liver – on October 28,  2022. It came after several weeks of the toddler suffering from a sore stomach. 

After their GP had felt his tummy and noticed a swollen area near his liver, the little boy was referred to Broomfield Hospital in Essex for tests. Just days later he was at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in London to start chemotherapy. The family was also told Hugo would need a liver transplant.

‘It was a week between that GP appointment and Hugo starting his cancer treatment’, remembers Jasmin, who lives in a small village in Essex. ‘We barely had time to process it.

‘You see things about cancer on the television but you never expect it will happen to you. We were crying on the kitchen floor each night for the first two or three weeks. It was awful, we really struggled at first.

‘The kids didn’t really know what “cancer” meant.  We told Hugo and his brothers that he had some “naughty cells” in his liver which we needed to get out.’

Jasmin and partner Mike, 42, would drive regularly to GOSH for Hugo’s chemotherapy, to Broomfield Hospital for regular tests and to King’s Hospital in London for transplant related treatment. 

The cost of fuel, parking and London’s congestion charges soon piled up. Jasmin estimates she paid upwards of £500 each month on transportation costs.

‘We had a big family car before Hugo was diagnosed with cancer, a Land Rover Discovery,’ she continues. ‘It was perfect for us, especially as we live in the middle of nowhere.

‘But all that changed when we started driving to the hospitals. It was costing me £400 each month on fuel alone.

‘So we sold that car to save money and got an old Volkswagen Tiguan. It was cheaper to run and less stressful to drive in central London. But the engine seized not long after we got it, so that was another few hundred pounds.’

Jasmin admitted her financial worries to her family when she got a call about a potential liver transplant match for Hugo. It had come earlier than expected and would mean the youngster would spend several weeks at King’s Hospital in London.

She also launched a GoFundMe which raised £5,000 towards the costs associated with Hugo’s care.

‘It was great news about the transplant’, Jasmin explains, ‘But I hadn’t really factored those trips to King’s into our finances. He was going to spend a month in hospital and it was going to cost us a fortune. At GOSH they pay for one parent’s meal, but at King’s that wasn’t the case. An M&S was the only place you could go to buy food if you were there for a long time.

‘It was at this point I realised I wasn’t going to be able to afford our rent that month.’ Jasmin and Mike’s rent was £1,100 a month, on top of the hundreds they spent on petrol, parking and congestion charges. On two occasions, the family was slapped with ULEZ fines after their SatNav took them an unexpected route.

‘Luckily we have a very close and supportive family and I was able to borrow money from them, otherwise I don’t know how we would have coped.’

In the end, Hugo had to miss some check-ups – such as hearing tests – because the family simply couldn’t afford to travel over to London so often. As December hit, buying Christmas presents for her three children became an additional fear as Jasmin and Mike tried desperately to keep up a sense of a ‘normal life’ for the family.

That’s when Young Lives vs Cancer stepped in. The charity, which supports children across the UK, provides grants and free accommodation close to hospitals for families in need of extra support. The charity arranged a meeting with the Sarll family when Hugo’s treatment began.

‘We had our first meeting with Young Lives vs Cancer at GOSH’, Jasmin remembers. ‘We had a fantastic support worker called Becca who helped us fill in forms and come to terms with everything. She helped us access Disability Living Allowance (DLA), apply for a blue badge and got us grants to help cover costs. It was honestly amazing, I still feel so grateful.

‘Before, there had been some days where the situation was “are we paying this bill, or are we putting food on the table?” I don’t know how we coped.

‘The financial side of cancer is a big problem and a lot of families struggle with it. But I think people can be scared to speak out or feel too proud to ask for help,’

For Jasmin, she’s sharing her honest story in a bid to help other families reach out for help and realise they aren’t alone.

‘Childhood Cancer Awareness Month isn’t promoted in the supermarkets’, she says. ‘It’s not on TV, it can be swept under the rug. It can sometimes be a little baby, maybe even a few days old, getting a cancer diagnosis and people get upset by that.

‘But we need to talk about it, this does happen whether or not it’s easy to read about. There needs to be more support.’

As well as Young Lives vs Cancer, Jasmin got support from the network of other families she met during Hugo’s cancer journey. To any parents who have just been informed of their child’s cancer diagnosis, she reassures them: ‘It gets easier. It never gets better, but it gets easier.

‘You’ll get into a routine and meet lovely other families. You’ll bond with these families through the trauma and those difficult times, no-one understands it like they do. And reach out for support whether it is charities, friends or family, that’s what it’s there for.’

Hugo had nine months of chemotherapy and a liver transplant before he was declared cancer free in July 2023.

It’s still difficult, however, with several tests and trips back to hospital whenever Hugo’s levels aren’t quite right. Jasmin always fears the cancer will return. 

She adds: ‘When you go through a cancer treatment, all you dream about is that day your child will get to ring the bell.

‘You think everything will return to normal then. But it doesn’t, it’s a new normal.

‘Because of Hugo’s transplant, his life is a little different to other children. He has lots of medication to take each day and we have to keep an eye on him and his health will always be a worry.

‘But Hugo has a very strong character. He’s four now, the sort of child that the doctors never seem to forget. He loves Paw Patrol and Spiderman at the moment and has a beautiful smile despite everything he’s been through.’

Surrounded by towering machines beeping all around him, one-year-old Thomas Andrews grasped his toy lion called Olly the Brave.

Watching from the sidelines awash with guilt was his mum, Victoria Andrews, who had brought her baby in for his first round of chemotherapy at Southampton Hospital.

Victoria and Thomas’ dad Daniel had told the youngster that he had a ‘poorly tummy’. After all, he was far too young to even begin to comprehend the reality – that he had hepatoblastoma, a cancer that forms in the tissues of the liver.

‘During chemotherapy, I couldn’t get around the fact I was letting my little boy essentially be poisoned to save his life,’ Victoria tells Metro.co.uk.

‘But if I didn’t let that happen, he’d have died.

‘Thomas was having a type of chemo that can result in hearing loss, so to try to prevent that happening, he’d take a medicine called sodium thiosulfate. But he would throw up instantly the moment they hooked him up to it. It was awful.’

Her little boy had been diagnosed with hepatoblastoma in August 2021. A swollen tummy was Victoria’s first indication something was wrong with her son, but when she raised it with her GP, her concerns were brushed off.

It was months later, after being sick and developing a fever one Saturday morning, that Thomas was rushed to A&E at St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester, West Sussex.

Again, Victoria was told by a doctor that there was nothing to worry about – it was probably a virus, something often seen with lockdown babies as they had had weaker immune systems. However, alarm bells rang for one nurse on the ward, and she put a call into the hospital’s pediatric ward for Thomas to be seen. 

It was the next morning, after several tests and scans, that Victoria and Daniel were told their son had cancer.

‘Everything changed in that moment,’ Victoria remembers. ‘They’d found a very large tumour on his liver. My first thought was “he’s going to die.” I see a lot of cancer deaths in my work as a nurse, so I feared the worst. 

‘I’d also read about children with cancer who had sadly died. Thomas’s diagnosis came around the time Azaylia Diamond Cain [daughter of former footballer Ashley Cain and influencer Safiyya Vorajee] lost her battle with leukemia. 

‘After finding out Thomas had cancer, we were blue-lighted to Southampton Hospital. The first thing I said to the doctor was “is my baby going to survive?” He was only 13-months-old, he was so small.

‘The doctor assured us he’d do everything in his power to save Thomas.’

Initially, the tumour on the toddler’s liver was so large that a potential transplant was discussed. Victoria and Daniel faced sleepless nights as they worried about potential complications that could arise from the surgery. But after Thomas’s fourth round of chemotherapy, an MRI showed that the treatment had successfully shrunk the cancer.

However, as the ittle boy’s treatment continued, his family discovered a new problem: money.

Victoria was offered paid leave by the NHS from her job at St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester. But Daniel, a self-employed construction worker, didn’t have the same financial support after he had to put down tools to care for Thomas.

The toddler needed new clothes as he’d lost too much weight to fit into his old ones. He also required more nappies, as chemotherapy affected his bladder.

Victoria adds: ‘You have tunnel vision when your child is diagnosed with cancer. Fuel costs, parking, food, new clothes for Thomas  – that all came as a surprise. I was so lucky to get paid leave from the NHS, but it covered the bills and little else. 

‘Thankfully, at the hospital, we were introduced to a social worker called Clare from the charity Young Lives Vs Cancer.

‘She would always check in to make sure we were coping financially. She was really good at chatting about everything and anything to take our minds off the cancer. Daniel rang her up a couple times when he needed someone to talk to.

‘Clare really was a bit of light in the darkest of times. The week before we first went to King’s Hospital in London for Thomas’s surgery, she rang and said the charity could give us a grant to cover travel costs. I couldn’t believe it.

‘I don’t think we would have got through Thomas’s treatment as well if it wasn’t for that support that we had from Clare and Young Lives Vs Cancer.’

Thomas, now three, was declared cancer free in May 2022, and the family’s calendar is no longer filled with MRI scans, chemotherapy dates or hospital appointments. 

Instead, there’s one very special date to look forward to in June 2024.

‘Thomas’s last chemotherapy was in December 2021 and we were due to go home on my birthday, December 15,’ Victoria explains.

‘Daniel was meant to be at home with my daughter, Eleanor, while I stayed at the hospital. But he came in in the evening and then, all of a sudden, a nurse popped in and said there was a for me. 

‘As the ward was decorated for Christmas, I passed lots of fairy lights on my way to get to the phone. When I picked it up, I noticed there were loads of people in the corridor around me, families, nurses, staff.

‘I turned around and there was Daniel walking towards me. He got down on one knee and asked if I’d do the honour of becoming his wife.

‘It was mad – I was in my pajamas and fluffy slipper socks, I hadn’t done my hair or anything. But it was so special. Daniel later told me how he’d wanted to end the worst time of our life with something positive, with something to look forward to.

‘I suppose the proposal might seem a bit bizarre to other people,’ laughs Victoria.

With the couple getting married in Chichester this June, Thomas, who has remained happy and healthy since completing his treatment, will be front and centre at the celebrations with his big sister, Eleanor. 

And while he loves to play pretend ‘doctors’ at home, for Victoria, the emotional toll of her son’s cancer remains.

‘I suffer from a lot of anxiety now, a lot more than I did before. I find it a bit surreal what’s happened. Kind of like an out of body experience – you sit and you think “did that actually happen?”,  because when you’re living it, you’re going through the motions and you’re on auto-pilot.

‘There’s such a range of emotions, you think you’re coping ok and then it will just hit you like a tonne of bricks. 

‘Our lives will just never ever, ever be the same again,’ adds Victoria.

‘I can be an anxious mess when it comes to his health. But the chance of relapse is minimal and I do try to remember that. 

‘In 2023, we went for a meal to celebrate a year since Thomas was declared cancer free. This year, we might have a special day out. Our cancer experience has made us really appreciate our time together as a family.’

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