Nicola Bulley case brings fresh heartache for mother of missing York chef Claudia Lawrence
Joan Lawrence speaks to ITV News
The mother of the missing chef Claudia Lawrence says the disappearance of Nicola Bulley has "brought it all back".
Joan Lawrence remains desperate for answers about what happened to Claudia, a chef at the University of York who was 35 when she vanished from her home in Hemsworth, North Yorkshire, on March 18, 2009.
She says she is keen to offer support to the family of 45-year-old Ms Bulley, a mother-of-two who went missing from a riverside path as she walked her dog in St. Michaels on Wyre in Lancashire two weeks ago.
Mrs Lawrence, 79, said she was "stunned" when the news first broke of Ms Bulley's case.
She said: "When it first came on the news I was very, very upset. I cried my eyes out for the family, for me, for Claudia. The similarities - it was very painful, it brought it all back."
Ms Bulley had dropped her two daughters, aged six and nine, off at school and then took her dog for a walk alongside the river on 27 January before she went missing.
Her phone, still connected to a Teams call, was found on a bench on a steep riverbank overlooking the water, along with the dog lead and harness on the ground. No other sign of her has been seen since.
Mrs Lawrence said: "I have tried to get messages to the family to say if they want to contact me, to talk to me - especially the mum - that I understand exactly what they're going through.
"As the days have gone on, they won't be eating, they won't be sleeping."
Claudia's disappearance was initially treated as a missing person case but police later launched a murder investigation. Despite repeated appeals, widespread searches and a number of arrests, detectives are no closer to uncovering the truth about what happened.
Mrs Lawrence said there were similarities between Claudia's case and that of Ms Bulley.
She said: "As somebody said to me, somebody doesn't just disappear into thin air – they are there somewhere and somebody knows where they are. I think that was it - [Ms Bulley] just suddenly disappeared and there was no trace and this is what has happened to Claudia."
The focus of the search for Ms Bulley has now shifted from where she vanished to further downstream, towards where the River Wyre empties into the Irish Sea at Morecambe Bay.
Mrs Lawrence said she wondered "if someone has been watching her" walking her dog along the same stretch of river and had been involved in her disappearance.
She said she still struggles to sleep and lights a candle every night for her own daughter.
"I often read in the middle of the night because I can't sleep," she said. "I say a prayer every morning and I give thanks because every day is a gift.
"It has been a very difficult time for me since it happened, but you get through each day."
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