Durham Constabulary is set to feature in a major new series on BBC One called Reported Missing. The three part series follows our officers as they try to get missing people back to their loved ones. It’s a part of policing that is not crime and people often don’t see. However, it involves a lot of physical and emotional resource from police and partners. The first episode is on Wednesday, 12th April, 9pm on BBC 1.
Below is taken from the BBC website about the series:
Every two minutes someone in Britain goes missing. Multiple cameras follow the hunt for missing people, from the police tasked with finding them to loved ones left at home.
In Darlington, the police are increasingly concerned for the safety of 12 year-old Joshua, who has stormed off after a row with his mum and seemingly disappeared. Prone to escaping into a superhero-inspired world of fantasy, Joshua’s learning difficulties and trusting nature make him especially vulnerable, and as the minutes become hours, then yet more hours, and as darkness falls, fears mount.
It’s down to Inspector Sarah Honeyman and her team to try and find Joshua before it’s too late: She says: “The biggest fear is that somebody snatches that child. As a police officer you are very well aware that there are more people out there that would do that than maybe the general public think.
“Your child is the most precious thing in your life. As a parent myself, you’d be looking for somebody to say everything is going to be okay – but you can’t give that guarantee, and it would be wrong to.”
Not far away, in a rural town in County Durham, the alarm is raised when 13 year-old Katie disappears from home leaving behind a troubling suicide note. All available officers are immediately scrambled to the search and a search dog and handler from the local Mountain Rescue team is drafted in – but budget cuts mean police helicopters are more thinly stretched than ever, and with the local one tied up on a firearms job, there’s an agonising wait to try and get vital air support.
PC Matt Gunby, whose difficult job it is to wait with the family, knows it doesn’t get any more serious than this: “A missing person in a negative frame of mind is a completely different matter to deal with. Then when you find a suicide note everything else goes out the window. The parade room at the station will empty and every available officer will go and look for that child.”
But it’s the family who feel it most keenly, as everything hangs in the balance. Katie’s mother Jackie explains: “That day, I remember snippets of that day. To be honest I’d seen her going to bed the night before, there were no signs that it was affecting her that much. And that’s the scary thing because we always felt we knew her better.
