Every day I pray and ask God to help our Fatemeh

MUM’S AGONY OVER DAUGHTER MISSING 24 YEARS

IN the summer of 1995, teenager Fatemeh Hassani walked out of her home in Manchester on her way to college – she was never seen again.

A month after her mysterious disappearance the phone rang at Fatemeh’s family home in Chorlton-onMedlock. The line was slightly muffled, but Mehdi Khodabakhsh could clearly hear his 16-year-old sister Fatemeh crying on the other end of the line.

Speaking to her siblings through tears, Fatemeh told them how much she missed them, but refused to say where she was calling from.

Then just a child himself, Mehdi called for his mum Khadijeh Khodabakhsh.

She was desperate to hear from her missing daughter and rushed to the phone, only to hear the dull sound of a dial tone.

When Fatemeh – who also went by the name ‘Asefeh’ or ‘Asifa’ – left home she had scrawled an emotional note on the living room wall which was hidden behind a wrestling poster.

It read: “Dear parents, don’t worry about me I’m 17 now” and “Mum I will never forgive you”.

In the weeks and months that came after her mysterious disappearance, Fatemeh’s bereft family turned to police, a private detective and even a palm reader in a bid to find her.

But they have heard nothing since that fateful day, almost 25 years ago.

Last year the M.E.N. exclusively reported on how Greater Manchester Police have re-opened their enquiries into a case they are determined to crack.

Now, as they work to find out what happened to Fatemeh, officers have used age-progression technology to create an image showing how she would look today, at the age of 40.

The image has been created by GMP in the hope that it will spark new leads in the case.

Her family say it’s as if Fatemeh disappeared off the face of the earth. They have clung to that last phone call, the note scrawled on the wall and the first name of a boyfriend she had as the last pieces of information about her life.

In May 1995, when Fatemeh went missing, she was studying at the Manchester College.

According to her family she may have been under pressure and had argued with her parents in the runup to her disappearance. Last year Khadijeh told the M.E.N. that she still thinks of her daughter every day.

She said: “I have never moved from this house in case she comes back.

“I just want her to know that I love her. I made a mistake because I think I was very strict with her.

“Every day I pray and ask God to help her and have news from her. I just want her to be safe.

“If she doesn’t want to see me, her brothers and sister have a right to have their sister back. I know inside they are hurting.

“My children are very close and caring to each other and to me. Our family circumstances are completely changed. The door is open.”

Julie Potts and Pc Helen McNeill, from the Missing Persons Unit, have worked tirelessly over the last few months to find new leads and reassess several dormant missing reports on GMP’s books.

Fatemeh and her family moved to the UK from Iran in 1991 so her father could study for a PhD at the University of Manchester.

The young Fatemeh, her brothers and sister all attended school and college in Manchester and had