The heartbroken families whose loved-ones went missing and have never been found
The families of two missing young people from the West Country are still seeking answers years after they disappeared.
It’s been almost 30 years since Jenny and Mike Thompson from Cheltenham last heard from their son James - or Jamie, as he was known.
In 1993, he went to live in Ireland. A year later, the 20-year-old disappeared from Dublin, just days before he was due to come home.
Jenny said: "We’re both 80 this year and time is getting short. We keep thinking we might have other grandchildren, which would be nice."
Finn Layland-Stratfield from Tintagel disappeared in July 2017. Now, more than six years on, his mum Bek still thinks about the last time she saw him.
She said: “Finn is in my mind every day. I never stop thinking about him and as Finn’s mum I’d never give up on him.”
Someone is reported missing every 90 seconds in the UK, with 353,000 missing incident cases reported each year and more than 5,000 people classed as long-term missing.
Missing People, a charity that's been helping thousands of families cope with the trauma of a missing loved-one is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
Since Finn’s disappearance, Bek has joined the Missing People choir to mix with other families in similar situations.
Bek said: “So it’s been good to be able to chat to other people about, ideas from them, how it is, how it feels after five, 10, whatever years.”
Every night before she goes to sleep Julie Stammers messages her son Anthony on social media - she’s been doing this now for almost 11 years. He disappeared in 2012.
Julie said: “There are days obviously I don’t want to face the day. I don’t want to get up. There are days I don’t sleep very well and if I do sleep and I wake up and go damn, I am in this nightmare. I might have had a dream but I’ve woken up into this nightmare.”
Her husband Rob said: “It’s a situation that you can’t believe is existing. If someone had said to me one of your children would be missing for nearly 11 years, you couldn’t comprehend it.”
Founded in 1993, Missing People was the idea of the late sisters Janet Newman and Mary Asprey.
They were friends with the family of estate agent Suzy Lamplugh who went missing in 1986 - the sisters saw the trauma her family went through and set up a helpline
Jo said: “Setting up the charity in the way that they did from something very small in a back bedroom to now a national organisation.
"Also ensuring that the issue of missing is there in people’s minds because I think back in the beginning people had no idea of the devastation that missing causes for a family.”
From a telephone helpline and faces on milk bottles, to delivery drivers and digital billboards 30 years on. The way appeals are made has changed, but the issue has not gone away.
Broadcaster Sir Trevor McDonald is a patron of the charity and has been with them since the start.
Sir Trevor said: “It has affected me because I have understood, which I never did before, the depth of the problem. Also I never thought of the sheer numbers of people. I had no idea of the magnitude of what we were actually dealing with.
“You never get away from the agony and misery which people share with us when they talk about their missing loved ones and I understand the absolute necessity of giving support to people who are in this predicament.”
Anthony Stammer's older brother, James, in Bristol is training for the London Marathon to fundraise for the charity, which he says has been a lifeline.
James said: “The ability to give back to an organisation that’s basically been a genuine and real support network over these last 11 years from my perspective and I know my parents’. I can’t thank Missing People enough.”