I am one of the Founders of Locate International. I completed an MSc in International Criminal Justice at Portsmouth University Centre for Study of Missing Persons, where I was able to speak directly to families in unsolved missing persons investigations. Their pursuit of truth and feelings of injustice with regard to a lack of resources and the quality of investigations are powerful.
I am travelling to the USA and Canada to help develop our Locate Centre for Missing People Investigations, where we have a network of universities and community teams throughout the UK.
I was inspired by the approach and extent of community engagement with cold case investigations in both countries. I have found many examples in Canada and USA where collaborative work by teams of experts and volunteers, operating across different specialisms, was successful in cold case murder investigations. I will be looking to learn from those models and bring that back to help families in unsolved missing person investigations in the UK.