‘There’s always an empty space’: The families who spend Christmas waiting for someone who never comes home
For families of missing children, Christmas can be the hardest time of all. As The Independent’s SafeCall campaign reaches £165,000, parents and siblings open up about the ‘horrific’ pain of the festive season. Tara Cobham and Harriette Boucher report
Laying the table for Christmas dinner three months after his teenage son went missing was its own kind of heartbreak.
Peter Boxell remembers 25 December 1988 as a day spent clinging to hope, desperately willing his son Lee to come home. Attempting to will that hope into reality, he laid a place at the table for him. But as darkness fell, the devastating realisation crept in that Lee would not be coming home. He still hasn’t.
“I had hoped Lee might come home or we might hear from him – obviously I wanted him to come home for Christmas,” Mr Boxell told The Independent. “We had an extra space at the table for him for Christmas dinner in case he came home. It was just heartbreaking.”
Mr Boxell is among a number of family members who have opened up about how “horrific” it can be to spend Christmas without a missing loved one, as The Independent’s Christmas campaign, SafeCall, reaches its £165,000 target to launch a new national lifeline for missing young people, alongside the charity Missing People.
Donate here or text SAFE to 70577 to give £10 to Missing People – enough for one child to get help.
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Thanks to an extraordinary outpouring of public support, the free, round-the-clock service can now be established to reach the more than 70,000 children who go missing in the UK each year, offering support, safety and connection when they need it most.
The campaign’s target was reached as The Independent highlights on its Christmas Day front page the people who went missing as children or teenagers, and whose families are still desperately searching for them this festive season.
Lee Boxell, who would now be 52, disappeared on an ordinary, warm late summer’s day on 10 September 1988.
When the sleepy 15-year-old came downstairs at the family home in Cheam still in his pyjamas, Mr Boxell recalled: “I told Lee where we were all going and asked him if he had any plans. He just mumbled something, and I thought, ‘Well, he’s still not really awake yet, so I just won’t worry him.’ We left then – and that was the last time I ever saw Lee.”
It was when darkness fell that evening, and Lee – a “lovely, caring” boy who loved football and never got into trouble – had still not returned home, that the close-knit family began to panic.
“It was like a living nightmare,” Mr Boxell said. “We were up all night. We couldn’t sleep, just listening for the phone to ring or the doorbell to ring, thinking Lee would come home – but nothing.”
Searches were launched and appeals issued, with police taking the case especially seriously because there was “no reason” for Lee to go missing, Mr Boxell said. His son had just £10 on him and the clothes he was wearing.
It has now been 37 “very hard” Christmases since that day.
“Christmas is a difficult time for us because we don’t know whether he’s going to come home again or whether he is still alive,” Mr Boxell said. “We always think of Lee at Christmas and wonder where he could be, if he is alive, and if he is safe and well.
“But fortunately, I have a daughter, and she’s given us two lovely grandchildren.
“My grandson, especially, reminds me so much of my son. When he was little, I used to call him Lee – I couldn’t help it.”
Deirdre Fenech’s daughter Carmel went missing in 1998, after the 16-year-old was last seen at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court in London.
The three decades since have been horrendous for the family, and Ms Fenech said Christmas remains one of the hardest times.
“It’s very difficult,” she said. “The first couple of years, I was still buying presents, and we’d put them under the tree, and we’d keep them there.”
Each year, Carmel’s family would add to the pile, Ms Fenech said. “I just couldn’t keep looking at them, and in the end, I gave them all away. Now, I don’t buy anything. I just think if she comes home at Christmas, she doesn’t need a pile of presents under the tree. I will take her in and buy her whatever she wants.”
Natasha Walker’s sister, Katrice Lee, vanished from a supermarket on her second birthday in 1981. That first Christmas, her family wrapped gifts and placed them under the tree in case she came home.
Christmases since then have remained an especially painful time, Ms Walker said.
“It’s just really bloody hard,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking because you can see other people’s families celebrating, and although you’re celebrating, you still have that one person missing.
“I’ll never, ever forget Katrice. There’s never going to be a time where I’m not going to get up on Christmas Day and think, ‘Gosh, I wish she was here with me.’”
Ms Walker said Katrice’s birthday and the anniversary of her going missing both fall close to Christmas, which compounds their heartache at this time of year. “It’s always really sad,” she said.
“My dad will light a candle every Christmas Eve for Katrice, and I normally light a candle for Katrice.
“It’s just really difficult because there is that one person missing – you’re not sharing the joy of Christmas, and gifts.”
In a message to other families who are also spending Christmas without a missing loved one, Mr Boxell said: “I think they’ve got to try and enjoy Christmas as best they can for the sake of their other family members... [and] to try to think of the good times with their loved one who’s gone missing. I think that’s all they can do, really. We did have lots of good times with our son.”
Mr Boxell, who has been involved with Missing People since its founding and is a longstanding member of the charity’s choir, also threw his support behind the SafeCall campaign.
“I think SafeCall is a brilliant idea, especially for youngsters who are thinking they might have to leave home, or if they’ve already left home,” he said. “If they can call the charity, they’ll be helped enormously. It’s someone to talk to. They’ll help keep them safe, because it is a dangerous world out there.”
Alongside the generosity of our readers, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer threw his backing behind the campaign, joining actor and writer Sir Stephen Fry, campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen, former England football captain Sir David Beckham and presenter Lorraine Kelly. The Independent will continue to raise money for the cause into the new year to raise vital funds to support the running of the new helpline when the service launches.
Please donate now to The Independent and Missing People’s SafeCall campaign, which has raised £165,000 to create a free, nationwide service helping vulnerable children find safety and support.
For advice, support and options if you or someone you love goes missing, text or call the charity Missing People on 116 000. It’s free, confidential and non-judgemental. Or visit missingpeople.org.uk/get-help
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