The father of Katrice Lee, who disappeared 36 years ago, has spoken out about how there are so many missing children that don’t get any coverage.
Richard Lee’s daughter vanished when she was just two years old during a shopping trip with her mum in Germany in 1981. It was also little Katrice’s birthday, and the family were out there while he was stationed with the British army.
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Wednesday also marks the ten year anniversary since Madeline McCann went missing while on holiday with her parents in Portugal.
Sitting down with This Morning hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, the father said he is full of frustration as he believes that the police didn’t give his little girl the right amount of attention in the hours after his disappearance.
He said: “I’ve got two major feelings; Frustration that my daughter wasn’t given a fair crack of the whip.
“There are thousands of other missing children out there, and they should all get the same coverage.
“There’s infrastructure in place where we can flash across a motorway, ‘A blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl has gone missing’, rather than ‘fog ahead: slow down’.”
Katrice’s family have never given up on the hope that she is still alive: “I could be a grandparent and not know it. You’ve got to be realistic. What I want to know is ‘is she alright’ and ‘where is she?'”, said Richard.
A fresh investigation was launched in 2012 after the police admitted that there were a lot of mistakes made during the first probe.
In 2013, Katrice’s mum, Sharon Lee described exactly what happened when her toddler vanished in a supermarket: “The shop was jam-packed full. Wendy [her sister] was putting stuff out on the conveyor belt. I didn’t want to push back through the crowds carrying Katrice, so I just asked Wendy to watch her for two minutes. It was as simple as that.”
Talking to The Telegraph, she said: “I don’t blame Wendy. How could you blame her? Why would you think that your daughter was going to disappear that morning when you were just out on a family shop for her birthday? It should have been a joyous occasion.”
It was a sensitive subject for This Morning viewers, and they fully agreed with Richard’s point.
One suggested that more money should be spent on finding other missing children: “Reading about #ThisMorning’s topic on missing persons made me wonder why £11mill+ has been spent on #Maddie when there are so many others”.
Another found his situation “heartbreaking”.
Twitter users praised him for speaking out on Maddie’s anniversary.
“What a Man! There was not one hint of hate in his manner. I hadn’t considered there were many other missing children. Best of wishes to him”
Viewers at home completely agreed on Richard’s point and praised him for raising more awareness for other families going through the same struggle.
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