Missing
So many events being marked recently a 100 days of Obama, 1 year of Boris Johnson, nearly 18 months of a wrongful imprisonment.
And much more poignant is the second anniversary of little Maddie’s disappearance.
On many a sunny weekend in London, we (the Police)would be tasked with looking for lost children who had become separated from their parents. We would often spend hours looking, even into the deepest darkest places, well off the beaten track and often come up with no trace, it was extremely frustrating as you never got to offer resolution to the family of indeed yourself.
Thankfully there were success stories to, more than the missing ones. But there was also a few where the child had gone home or been found by the parents and they didn’t inform the police. Which meant we could often be searching for hours and ten find out we had been wasting valuable time. So if your ever on that situation and I pray your not, please let the authorities know asap.
The last abduction I remember dealing with was on a neighbouring patch and the call came out child abducted and last seen heading north, running parallel to our patch. There was no takers over the radio for the call at all (everyone committed to other calls - the silence was deafening), so a colleague and myself took it. Eventually we were joined by one other officer, it is scary to think that 3 officers had to search a fair chunk of North West London and thankfully the child was located safe and well a few days later. It turned out to be a bit of a family affair so it allowed investigators to track the child and abductor down fairly quickly.
It is bad enough to have to cope with that in your own country, but whilst away and on holiday when peoples guards are generally lower (so many tourists in London - anywhere get targeted as they are ‘on holiday’ and not paying attention and standing out), there are language barriers, cultural issues etc etc It is a true nightmare.
I have had to stop doing my voluntary Search & Rescue work with everything going on. Maybe its time things like that were on a more formal footing? Maybe I will go back to it one day soon, to do that little bit to help out in cases like that. Anyway…
Spare a thought for little Maddie and her family and the thousands of other missing from home and their families.
Pablo Picasso once said ‘Seek and you will find’.
Keep seeking.