A CHILD DISAPPEARS EVERY FIVE MINUTES IN THE UK

Sunday Herald, The, Dec 23, 2007 by NEIL MACKAY

SOME 100,000 children have gone missing in Britain this year, according to Scotland Yard's National Missing Persons Bureau and Pact (Parents and Abducted Children Together), one of the world's leading charities that campaigns on behalf of disappeared children.

Pact, which works closely with the Missing Persons Bureau, has on its board Laura Bush, the wife of US President George W Bush; Cherie Blair; Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger.

Alan Blackburn, intelligence officer with the UK Police National Missing Persons Bureau, said of the 100,000 missing children, "That's one every five minutes".

Although most of the 100,000 children who go missing are found within days, hours or even minutes, a significant minority remain "long-term missing". Included within the 100,000 figure are repeat runaways.

This year alone, 41 children are currently listed by Scotland Yard as having gone "long-term missing".

Among these, the child absent the longest vanished in January.

The most recent disappearance was on December 9.


Most children went missing over the summer months. And statistics show that, on average, only 10per cent of children who disappear go missing for more than five days.

The figures, coming at the end of a year in which Madeleine McCann disappeared, and the bodies of two teenage girls - Vicky Hamilton, from Redding near Falkirk, and Dinah McNicol - were discovered at a house in Margate, make for shocking reading. Scottish man Peter Tobin, who once lived there, has been charged with Vicky's murder.


Figures collated by Pact, and supported by Scotland Yard, also show that child abduction offences have more than doubled in a decade. The most recent figures show that in 1995 there were fewer than 400 abduction offences, including both successful and unsuccessful attempts by parents and strangers. In 2005 there were 1028.

Only 9per cent of all abductions are successfully carried out by strangers. In most cases of "stranger" abduction the child was aged about 10 and most victims were female. Two-thirds of victims abducted by strangers were recovered within 24 hours.

Most missing children, however, are runaways or "thrownaways" - children who feel forced to leave their home by parents, due, usually, to family disputes, neglect or abuse.

The most recent research in Scotland, according to Pact, shows that more than
A quarter of all runaways slept rough, 8per cent were sexually assaulted while away from home, and 9per cent survived by stealing.


Blackburn estimated that 95per cent of missing children were located each year. According to Ross Miller from the British charity Missing People: "There is evidence that individuals running away from residential care are more likely to run away repeatedly than those from home."

Commenting on the large preponderance of children from ethnic minority backgrounds on the current 2007 "long-term missing" list, Miller added that his charity's own research "suggests black people and people of Asian origin tended to go missing at an earlier age [than the average]."

"Indeed, people from minority ethnic groups were significantly more likely to go missing as teenagers than white people."

Police believe that the rise in the number of illegal immigrants with children in the UK who "go underground" to avoid deportation could also account for the disparity in the large numbers of children from ethnic minorities compared to white British children among the missing figures.

Many families are also too distressed to talk to the media, which results in television and newspapers not covering the disappearance of their children, he added.

Here, the Sunday Herald reports on the forgotten cases of two young girls currently on Scotland Yard's "long-term missing" list. Their stories highlight the painful reasons behind the disappearances of children and the dreadful reality of parents living in hope that their missing children will one day return to them

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20071223/ai_n21172509

great. so how come we dont get to hear about any of them?

Coconut wrote:great. so how come we dont get to hear about any of them?

Because missing children obviously arent important!!!

No, what is important in this country is Iraq, oil, Iraq and erm.....oil.
And Guns.
And Iraq
And licking Americas arse.

eddie wrote:No, what is important in this country is Iraq, oil, Iraq and erm.....oil.
And Guns.
And Iraq
And licking Americas arse.

And what film star is divorcing who
And what drug clinic they are booked into

Allstar wrote:

eddie wrote:No, what is important in this country is Iraq, oil, Iraq and erm.....oil.
And Guns.
And Iraq
And licking Americas arse.

And what film star is divorcing who
And what drug clinic they are booked into

Oh yes and pampered drugged-up singers who have a beehive that houses all of UK's wildlife!

eddie wrote:

Allstar wrote:

eddie wrote:No, what is important in this country is Iraq, oil, Iraq and erm.....oil.
And Guns.
And Iraq
And licking Americas arse.

And what film star is divorcing who
And what drug clinic they are booked into

Oh yes and pampered drugged-up singers who have a beehive that houses all of UK's wildlife!

My god - isn't it awful our missing children are ignored or banished to a lines when such silly stories about silly people get to hug the front pages.......

It is shocking we dont hear about these missing children, I never thought for a minute it was this many.

lincs wrote:It is shocking we dont hear about these missing children, I never thought for a minute it was this many.

I didnt either and I dont know if i believe it now. It cant be that many surely.