The unsolved missing persons case of Claudia Lawrence is being examined in a new podcast which has seen new information come to light, including a key discovery
It has been 16 years since Claudia Lawrence vanished but tragically, her mother still hasn’t received closure.
The chef was just 35 when she disappeared without a trace in March 2009 after failing to show up to her work at the University of York canteen. Despite an extensive police investigation, what happened to her remains a mystery, with it sadly becoming one of Britain’s most well-known unsolved missing person cases.
Her mother Joan Lawrence, 81, from Malton, revealed to the Mirror this week that she discovered a tiny opening in the roof of her daughter’s old home in Heworth, North Yorkshire, that has never been searched by forensic officers. Joan has since agreed to meet a police boss inside her missing daughter’s home.
Claudia lived by herself in the two-bedroom terraced house and when police searched her home, there was nothing to suggest there had been a struggle inside. Police believe that Claudia was murdered, but her body has never been found.
The discovery was made a few weeks ago when Joan visited the property with a podcast crew but she has said she has “lost all faith and trust” in the police investigating her daughter’s case. North Yorkshire Police conducted two investigations and questioned nine people, but no charges have ever been brought.
She also revealed that bottles had been found at the terraced house, which also needed to be tested. “We found them behind the internal door into the living room, it was a mixture of wine, cider and water bottles,” Joan explained.
About the meeting next Wednesday, she said: “I am willing to hear what they have to say. But they have had 16 years to find answers.
“The anniversary is coming up. This is so hard for me. It takes me right back to the beginning.” She added: “I would like an apology for the first five years. It breaks my heart every time I go in the house, it’s such a mess which has destroyed all the happy memories I had of being there with Claudia.”
Alongside the discovery of the hidden loft, a woman now claims she found a rucksack worn by Claudia when she went missing a few days later. In the podcast Answers for Claudia, the woman named Bev said she saw the purple and blue Karrimor bag next to a tree stump near the River Tees at Ingleby Barwick – around 40 miles from York – and contained some sandwiches wrapped in foil.
Bev initially left the rucksack alone but returned later to look for the bag after seeing DCI Lucy Pope, of North Yorkshire Police, mention it in a press conference. By then though, the rucksack allegedly had gone.
She told the podcasters: “It wasn’t until I seen the newspaper article that I then went, that is the bag I found. I distinctively remember turning the newspaper over and seeing the bag, knowing that is the bag I found.”
They also heard from a van driver named Dave, who said he saw a woman about 20 miles away on the A1M near Wetherby, North Yorkshire, the night before Claudia was last known to have gone to work. When he saw the missing woman’s face on the news a few days later he said: “That’s the woman off the A1, that’s her.”
Claudia was last seen on March 18, 2009, after finishing work at Goodricke College. Later that evening, at around 8pm, she spoke to her father on the phone.
She then called her mother Joan and spoke about the TV show Location, Location, Location. She was said to have sounded normal and relaxed during the call, telling her mother she was going to sleep early because her car was in the garage and she would need to walk the 45-minute journey to work the next morning.
But the next day, she failed to arrive for her 6am shift at the university canteen. Her father entered her home the next day, and it seemed as though she had left for work with her used breakfast plates in the sink, and her chef’s whites, rucksack, and mobile phone missing.
CCTV later showed a man standing behind Claudia’s house on the morning of her disappearance. A witness also told police there was a man, aged around 55 to 65, standing outside her property at around 6.45am that morning.
The CCTV was timestamped at around 7.15pm on March 18 – an hour before Claudia was on the phone with her parents. Questions over his identity remain.
The last message Claudia sent before her disappearance was at 8.23pm on March 18, around the time she was speaking to her parents. The final text she received was on the same night at 9.12pm from a friend in Cyprus. Her phone was then turned off at around 12.10pm on March 19.
North Yorkshire Police said this week: “The new Senior Investigating Officer intends to visit Claudia’s home for familiarisation purposes only, this is not for the purpose of conducting any operational or forensic enquiries.”