Valerie Nettles hangs up her son Damien’s festive stocking every Christmas Eve – more than 20 years after he went missing.
Her family is one of thousands haunted by not knowing what happened to their loved ones decades after they vanished.
And Christmas is a particularly painful time, says Valerie, who decorates her tree with stars her son made as a little boy out of wire coat hangers and gold tinsel.
“It’s almost like role playing,” she said. “But it’s a little hollow. There is always this emptiness, this question of ‘what would Damien be saying and doing if he was here?’”
Damien, 16, vanished after leaving his home in Cowes, Isle of Wight, one evening to meet friends in November 1996.
His mother, now 65, has accused cops of not taking his case seriously because he wasn’t a child or female.
Blunders included losing the last CCTV footage of him eating chips in the street and giving his age as 19, meaning his disappearance wasn’t treated as urgently.
Now Valerie is calling for a Damien’s Law to ensure more missing people are found. And she has teamed up with Charlie Hedges, a leading expert in missing children, to demand a new Centre of Expertise in Missing People to give cops better training and focus on cold cases.
He said: “We must strive to do more in the missing person cases, which can be dismissed as being of little importance because ‘they will just turn up, won’t they’.”
The campaign for a specialist centre is also supported by Ann Coffey, Labour MP for Stockport, who said: “We desperately need to have a centre which can bring together knowledge and expertise on people who go missing.”
Mum-of-four Valerie, who now lives in Texas, joined other families at a charity carol service to remember the missing at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, last Monday.
Hampshire police insist Damien’s case is still open but his mum fears it is just a box on the shelf.
His family suspect he was killed and buried on the island by a drug dealer, who has since died.
She said: “I need to do something for Damien, for this not to have happened for nothing and to stop this happening again.
“I can’t bear not knowing how he passed and wondering if he was calling for mum or dad. I just need to know what happened. Even the gory details.”
- To sign the petition for Damien’s Law go visit www.change.org/damienslaw
Teens still not found
Finn Leyland-Stratfield
Age at disappearance: 18
Missing from Tintagel, Cornwall since July 8, 2017
Rajmond Dida
Age at disappearance: 16
Missing from Eastbourne, East Sussex since May 8, 2017
Gideon Kalonji
Age at disappearance: 15
Missing from Haringey, East London since July 27, 2017
Tiana Medaini
Age at disappearance: 18
Missing from Lambeth, South London since January 25, 2013
Thi Phoung Hoai Dao
Age at disappearance: 16
Missing from Meadows, Nottingham since July 2017
- If someone you know is missing, if you have information about a missing person, or if you are thinking of leaving or are away from home, contact Missing People’s free, confidential and 24/7 helpline on 116 000 or email 116000@missingpeople.org.uk