SHOPS FOR LOST TEEN DAUGHTER I’ve spent 24 years searching for my girl

Over the next two years, officers were told that a teenager matching her description was spotted in several locations around Northampton and Milton Keynes, Bucks.

By 1996 the trail appeared to have gone cold. But in 2000, police were told Jaime had been seen at a club in Northampton. Eric’s market sighting followed in 2004.

Police say no more sightings were recorded until 2011, when a woman matching Jaime’s description was seen in Alnwick, Northumberland.

Heartbreakingly mum Barbara, who had Parkinson’s, died in 2012 at 69, never knowing what happened to her girl. Now Eric fears he will suffer the same fate.

He said: “Barbara spent the last five years of her life in a nursing home but I visited her every day. y

“She’d ask a lot about bout Jaime, and if there was any new information on her. It was hard for me to keep telling her there were no real developments.

“Now she’s gone, Jaime is the only family I have. I can go weeks without speaking to anyone.

“I’m scared I’ll die too before I find out where Jaime is.”

Earlier this year, Jaime’s image was beamed to the nation on Britain’s Got Talent, during a performance by a choir from the Missing People charity.

Pregnant

Sadly, it did not lead to the breakthrough Eric longs for.

But the pensioner is pinning his hopes for family on rumours that Jaime had beco become e p pregnant eg a t a around ou d the time that she disappeared. Eric is desperate to know if she has had children of her own, and he even has a collection of soft toys he says he would love to give to his grandchildren.

He said: “I’d love to know if I’m a grandad. I think about it often. I have three Winnie the Pooh teddies which I’d give to my grandkids.”

The investigation into Jaime’s disappearance was reopened by Humberside Police in 2016. A forensic search was carried out on the property where she was last seen, but it yielded no results.

Eric refuses to give up hope of finding her alive. With the help of Missing People, he has printed off dozens of posters featuring an age-progressed image of how Jaime might look now.

He passes them to people he meets in the streets and begs shopkeepers to display them in their windows. He said: “Sometimes, shops will put the posters up for a while – but they always take them down after a few months.

“I don’t want people to stop looking for her. I have to keep reminding them.”

Today, as he marks the anniversary of Jaime’s disappearance, Eric will make his lonely pilgrimage to the town centre, hoping to catch a glimpse of her – just like he always does.

He said: “Every day, I wonder if I’ll bump into her. I’ve got a strange feeling that our paths will cross.

“I’m not sure what I’d say, I’d just want to know why she left without a word. We hadn’t had an argument and I’d no idea anything was wrong.

“If she’s out there, I’d just like her to know I’m not angry.

“I’d like to be back in her life – but most of all I just want to know if she is okay.”