Nine suspects quizzed. A £1.5m cold case probe. Now, hope of an answer at last
FOR 12 long years, the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence has remained one of Britain’s most perplexing unsolved mysteries. During that time, the smiling face of the York University chef has been burned into public consciousness, frozen in time as the woman of 35 who vanished in March 2009.
Hopes of a breakthrough have been raised many times – to date, nine people have been arrested or interviewed under caution, files have been submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service in relation to several individuals, but no charges brought. No trace of Claudia. More than 2,500 statements taken, more than 1,700 vehicles checked, dozens of homes and business premises examined, more than 200 items tested for DNA. No trace of Claudia. Despite an extensive suspected murder investigation and a cold case review costing a reported £1.5million, no one has been able to explain how Claudia simply vanished or tell her heartbroken family where she is. Could that finally be about to change?
Should yesterday’s developments finally lift the veil on what happened to the woman who apparently left the home, on the outskirts of York, where she lived alone, leaving her bed made, dirty plates in the sink and her slippers lined up in the hall, it would be the moment Claudia’s loved ones have been waiting for all these years.
ONLY two years ago, on the tenth anniversary of her disappearance, her mother Joan, 78, spoke about her continuing hope. ‘As her mum, I feel no cut-off. I can’t believe she is dead,’ she told the Mail. ‘I am never, ever giving up hope. Someone knows the truth.’
Fresh hope will be welcome. But hopes have been raised and dashed many times before, and this time there is a painful twist in the agonising mystery.
Her father Peter, a solicitor, campaigned tirelessly for answers and spent years arguing for what became the Guardianship (Missing Persons) Bill – also known as Claudia’s Law – which allows relatives to take control of their missing loved ones’ financial matters.
Peter died in February, aged 74, never knowing what happened to his daughter. So what do we know of what happened to Claudia Lawrence?
Nobody has seen or heard from her since she came home from work on Wednesday March 18, 2009. Close to her family, she’d grown up with her parents and older sister Ali in the pretty North Yorkshire market town of Malton. Her parents were divorced, and she’d spoken to each of them that evening, sounding ‘cheerful and relaxed’.
But she never arrived for her early shift at work the following day. It was Peter who reported her missing on the Friday after one of his daughter’s female friends alerted him when Claudia didn’t turn up to meet her in the pub, as they’d agreed, on Thursday night, and phone calls the next morning went straight to voicemail.
Mr Lawrence’s first action was to go to his daughter’s house with a spare key to check on her. She wasn’t there. He reported his daughter to North Yorkshire Police as a missing person, and the investigation began.
At Claudia’s home there was precious little evidence, no signs of a break-in or disturbance.
Her passport, bank cards and jewellery were still there – but her mobile phone, chef’s whites and a small Karrimor rucksack were all gone.
Following a TV appeal, one witness came forward to say they had seen a woman matching Claudia’s description talking to a left-handed smoker in the street. Another told police they had seen a couple arguing near the campus.
Then, a reconstruction of Miss Lawrence’s last known movements and possible witness sightings was screened on the BBC Crimewatch programme. To the distress of the Lawrence family, the course of the investigation suddenly altered.
Under questioning by Kirsty Young, Detective Supterindent Ray Galloway, since retired, who was leading the inquiry described Claudia’s love life as ‘complex and mysterious’ .
Early police inquiries revealed that Claudia, like many attractive single women, had dated a number of men: around 12 over a five-year period. At least one of them was married.
Suddenly Claudia’s busy social life, which centred largely on the Nag’s Head pub, her local, just a few doors down from her house, was in the spotlight – a source of pain and frustration for her family, who were grieved by the false impression of Claudia.
AS Joan put it in a 2019 interview: ‘Why is it always the woman who is judged? Everyone who knew Claudia – all her real friends in Malton – didn’t recognise her from how she’d been portrayed.’
Detectives have previously said they ‘strongly suspect key and vital information’ which would offer a breakthrough was being ‘withheld’ and that the answer to her disappearance lies ‘locally’.
Claudia’s mobile phone never left the local area and was deliberately switched off some hours after she failed to turn up for work. There have been various theories, various dead ends.
In a Channel 5 documentary called Missing or Murdered, one of Claudia’s work colleagues – speaking for the first time – suggested that shortly before her disappearance she had hinted at a new lover whom no one yet knew about.
Then there is the name Christopher Halliwell: he is the taxi driver who is serving a full life sentence for the sexually motivated murders of Becky Godden and Sian O’Callagan in Wiltshire. Could he be responsible?
North Yorkshire Police have investigated the link with Halliwell, who had family connections in Yorkshire, but have not found any evidence to support the theory.
There was speculation she could have been sex trafficked, more speculation about a moonlight flit to Cyprus, despite leaving her passport at home.
But her father Peter Lawrence gave this short shrift. ‘She was not a mastermind or a master criminal who would have been able to devise a way of going abroad not using a passport or bank account,’ he said.
The police investigation was dramatically scaled back in July 2010, then in 2013, North Yorkshire Police set up a new Major Crime Unit, specifically to look into ‘stalled’ cases such as Claudia’s.
A fresh forensic search of her home was launched, and in early 2014, fingerprints were found of people who have still not come forward.
A series of arrests followed in 2014 and 2015, but all were released without charge.
By 2017, police had announced the investigation, which by this time had cost £1million, was being scaled down. And yet, the hope has steadfastly remained.
Earlier this year, Joan said: ‘I have a gut feeling this year will bring something that could lead us to discover what has happened to Claudia. I pray for that each day.’
Whatever this latest police investigation reveals, it may not salve the anguish, but perhaps answers to this heartbreaking mystery may finally be near.