Team of expert trackers on a mission to find area’s missing
When someone disappears in Greater Manchester, it falls to a team of expert officers to track them down. joined them to find out how they go about it ...
IT’S only 9am and Helen McNeill already has 22 missing people to find. A Pc in Greater Manchester Police’s missing persons unit, Helen’s complex and sometimes thankless job keeps her very busy.
This morning she’s letting me tag along to an address in north Manchester in search of a man who has been missing for months.
Brian Billingsley, 64, was reported missing from Birmingham by worried friends and neighbours on November 22.
We know he travelled to Manchester and was last seen at Manchester Town Hall 18 weeks ago.
“He’s a bit of a mystery to us at the moment. He’s 64, he’s got no family and we’ve had limited information about his whereabouts,” said Helen.
“We’re just going to an address that’s come to us via some intelligence so, hopefully, he’ll be there.
“He’s pulled at my heartstrings, Brian, because he’s lived in the same flat for 30 years and for some unknown reason he’s got up, packed a small carrier bag and left his flat.”
When we arrive at the address a man answers the door and looks at the missing appeal poster then tells us Brian is upstairs.
“That’s brilliant,” says Helen, clearly delighted. “We’ve been looking for him for months.”
We meet Brian, who has been there for some time and seems surprised to see the police and bewildered to hear the is a national missing persons appeal to find him.
“You look really well, Brian,” Helen says.
“I am,” he replies as he shakes her hand and assures her he’s safe and well.
After months of work, Helen can finally close the case.
Elated from the morning’s result, Helen is hoping to ride the wave of success to another address.
Darren Brown, 48, was reported missing from Gorton by a friend on February 23.
We stop at an estate north of the city and Helen bangs on the door of a dilapidated property, but there is a wall of silence and we leave.
This is far more typical of the challenges Helen and her team face on a daily basis.
There are currently 103 missing people across Greater Manchester.
Some of them have been gone for years and almost all have complex needs and problems.
They vary from children in care and people with mental health problems to victims of trafficking.
Back at GMP’s Central Park offices, Helen is looking at the computerised logging system. In the short time we were out another three people have gone missing.
Two teenage girls who stayed away from home overnight have now returned.
They say they were in the back of someone’s car.
Officers need to find out who they were with.
A young homeless woman, six months pregnant, has not been spotted for days. She’s a regular ‘misper’.
It’s the case of Craig Wilcox, whose body was discovered at Dovestone reservoir, that still haunts Helen.
She had searched for the dad for weeks before his body was found.
“I will never forget the day I got the call saying they had found him,” says Helen.
“I felt sick. I had to tell his family and they were so lovely.
“With cases like that you feel let down and wish you could have found them alive.”