FRIEND ON 10-YEAR HUNT FOR CLUES I have dreams where my pal Claudia turns up safe and well after all this time
quite similar in that we both just wanted to go out and have a laugh. She is just one of those really special friends. If I was ever upset she would leave a little note to cheer me up.
“She’s incredibly caring. She was there when I needed her – she gave me a roof over my head and made me feel incredibly welcome. Her life was very ordinary. That is why I find it so hard to accept what happened. She likes the simple things in life.”
Jen last saw Claudia at the Nags Head just three days before she went missing. She says: “We’d all been in the pub for Cheltenham Day on the Friday before she disappeared. We had both been drunk. She had beer fear. If she’d been drinking she was always worried she’d done something to upset someone. She never had.
“Then after I saw her on the Sunday we texted like normal. The last text she sent was saying she had a row of 12 early start shifts and how she wasn’t going to have a life for a bit. I think she was walking to work that morning and something happened. Either she was snatched or coerced into a vehicle.”
Jen, who works in digital marketing, struggled with anxiety after the loss of her friend. “I lost my way and drank too much. It was my way of coping. Then I had hypnotherapy and acupuncture and learned how to deal with it.”
Now, as the 10-year anniversary approaches, Jen says: “I think about her every day. Some days I think she’s alive, some days I think she can’t be. It’s like having an equation you can’t quite find the answer to.”
“If she is dead, I want to be able to lay her to rest. And if she’s still alive, I want her to be home so we can begin to put her back together again.”
FRIEND JEN ON HOW SHE STILL CLINGS TO HOPE OVER CLAUDIA