Missing People - History

History

Early years (1986–89)

NMPH Following the high profile disappearance of estate agent Suzy Lamplugh from Fulham in July 1986, two sisters Janet Newman and Mary Asprey, became the co-founders of National Missing Persons Helpline. With no news of Suzy's whereabouts media attention moved to the apparent lack of support for missing persons' families, such as Paul and Diane Lamplugh. Mary with her sister, Janet Newman, established the Trust's initial work on missing people.

The helpline (1990–92)

From a bedroom at the sisters' home in East Sheen, south west London, a start-up service was formed in early 1990. The Freefone number, 0500 700 700, remains the same today. Meanwhile the Suzy Lamplugh Trust moved towards issues surrounding personal safety and safety in the workplace. Initially Mary and Janet and a small team of volunteers simply comforted callers to the helpline. However, they soon realised families wanted more than just telephone support. In 1992, having re-mortgaged their houses, Mary and Janet applied to register National Missing Persons Helpline (NMPH) as a charity.

Expansion (1993)

By the time it became a registered charity in April 1993, NMPH needed new offices to provide a complete range of services for relatives, enabling the charity to both find and support. This expansion was greatly helped by founders of the Big Issue, who secured premises in Mortlake. Missing People is still based here today. ITN's Sir Trevor McDonald - later to become a Vice Patron instigated invaluable publicity. Where funding allowed, new staff and volunteers joined and the information taken from each caller regarding a disappearance became more detailed and more accurate. A department offering Publicity was born. The success of the charity was cemented in its first year by an office visit from Diana, Princess of Wales in October.

Getting the Message Home (1994)

In February 1994 the resources of NMPH were stretched to the limit by the horrific discoveries at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester. Calls to the helpline from relatives of missing people trebled and extra volunteers had to be brought in to answer the phones. New callers reported relatives missing for the first time, even though some had vanished ten years ago or even more. Distressed families already in touch with the helpline called again, in case their missing relative might figure in the investigation. The police directed anxious families to NMPH for comfort and support. Gloucestershire Police called too, seeking help on identifying the bodies found at Cromwell Street and elsewhere. Their initial interest was in women reported missing from Worcestershire and Gloucestershire in the 1970s and 1980s. Some 390 names were supplied including Alison Chambers and Carol Cooper who were later identified as victims. At the same time, details mentioned by Frederick West were passed to NMPH for checking against our database. One result of this was the identification of Juanita Mott another of the victims discovered at Cromwell Street. A positive side effect of the charities role in the investigation was the reunion of 110 non-victim families in less than two months. On 27 June 1994 the charity took over the Message Home Helpline from the Mothers' Union, allowing adult missing people to pass a message home. In response to NMPH's growing achievements the charity was honoured that HRH The Duchess of Gloucester accepted the role of Patron. The Duchess continues to attend performances on our behalf and raise morale of staff and volunteers with regular visits.

Recognition (1996–1998)

In 1996 Mary Asprey and Janet Newman were honoured for their services to charity with OBEs. In 1998 both were honoured with the 'UK Women of Europe Award' and in the same year given the European Women of Achievement Humanitarianism Award and The Rotary Foundation's prestigious Paul Harris Fellowships.

Lost from View (2002)

The charity celebrates its 10th birthday. Jointly with the University of York, NMPH produced 'Lost from View' in February 2002. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation, for the first time research used the charity's unique database of all types of missing people to provide information and trends about the missing phenomenon.

Pioneering work (2003–2004)

Further accolades followed in 2003 when Mary and Janet were invited by The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to a reception at Buckingham Palace to mark the contribution of Pioneers to the life of the Nation. 2003 also saw the national roll out of the 'Missing from Care' project for local authorities 'looked after children' in September. This work for young people continued in May 2004 when NMPH launched the Runaway Helpline, as a direct response to a recommendation in the 2002 report by The Social Exclusion Task Force.

Financial problems (2005–2006)

Faced with closure after years of inadequate funding and little input from the private sector, the media announced NMPH was to close. Under the direction of the co-Founders Sir Norman Wakefield was appointed as advisor and formed a consortium of charitable organisations that offered financial support. After an outpouring of public support the Home Office too announced emergency funding for the charity. In September 2005, Paul Tuohy joined the charity as their first Chief Executive. The charity reformed its Board of Trustees and started a considerable process of strategic planning.

New Beginnings (2007)

In May 2007 the charity relaunched as ‘Missing People’. This reflected the considerable strategic developments that had been made and the fact that the charity now provided a range of services rather than a single helpline. Also in May, less than one week after her disappearance, missing three-year-old Madeleine McCann had become headline news around the globe. On International Missing Children’s Day (25 May) an appeal by the charity was projected onto Marble Arch to highlight Madeleine’s disappearance and the plight of missing children across the UK. In August Missing People launched the first comprehensive online “missing map” in the UK and Missing People TV’ – the first online channel featuring appeals of missing people. In October the charity along with other NGOs from the English Coalition for Runaway Children asked the government to ‘stop missing the missing issue’. This led to the government developing a strategy on the protection of young runaways for the first time ever. In 2007 the charity also teamed up with the police to hold their first joint conference on “missing”. Delegates came from across the globe came to Blackpool to debate and learn about the latest developments. In November 2007 Missing People won two awards for its website – which received more than 40 million hits in its first year. In December the BBC launched ‘Reunited’ - a season of hard hitting programmes about family members seeking to contact missing relatives and the complex reasons people run away.

Finding Missing People and Supporting Families (2008)

In March 2008 hundreds of families of the missing joined together to march through London to highlight the impact of someone going missing on their family, whilst Radiohead supported the charity with the donation of an exclusive one-off remix tape. April saw the first of the award-winning series Missing Live on BBC One. Successes included finding more than 100 people over the four week show. Missing People’s financial position was strengthened by a landmark decision by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to grant the charity £310,000 in June 2008 and by the appointment of five new trustees, which led to a shortlisting at the Third Sector Awards 2008 for most improved Trustee Board. In October 2008 Missing People and Iceland supermarket teamed up to launch milk carton appeals for the missing, following on from the success of a previous initiative with Iceland which had helped to find more than 15 people across millions of cartons. The first new appeal was for Andrew Gosden, a 14-year-old boy last seen at King’s Cross Station. In December 2008 Missing People launched the first report into the experiences of, and impacts on, the families of missing people called ‘Living in Limbo’. Also in December Missing People teamed up with 95.8 Capital FM to launch the Runaway Helpline text service, the first free helpline text service for young people, which was funded by Vodafone Foundation.