"I love you, Josh, and I miss you." "I just want to get to my Josh." "Every day hundreds of young people go missing in the UK." "Nobody can feel the pain that you're in except for people that have been in the same situation." "We join the relatives searching for clues." "What age was Olivia when you found the letter?" " 14." " 14." " Mm." " And this is a 25-year-old man writing to her?" " Mm." "And how do you feel when you find that letter?" "I felt sick to the stomach." "We meet the families who've been waiting for years." "This is his blazer here." "That's the last thing I saw him wearing as he went out of the door." "And we find out why the police can no longer cope." "Do you accept that right now children are being left at risk?" "I fully accept that." "We simply do not have the resources or the capability or capacity to deal with so many missing episodes." "Sawley Marina, Leicestershire." "Home to hundreds of boats of various shapes and sizes." "And home, too, for Josh Cotton, until one afternoon in March when the 22-year-old couldn't be found." "The barge Josh lived on was locked up, and he was gone." "We're hardly sleeping." "Eating's hard enough as well." "So you're having to force yourself." "Parents Mick and Jan have looked everywhere, but there's no sign of Josh." "What do you think happened?" "That's the golden question, isn't it?" "We just don't know." "We get scenarios going through our head all the time, all the time." ""What if this happened?" "What if that happened?"" "But you just don't know." "It's just a waiting game, innit?" " How long is he missing now?" " 19 days." "It just gets harder every day." "Josh seemed happy." "He was known for always having a smile on his face." "Last year, he bought a barge and restored it himself." "The Spirit was Josh Cotton's pride and joy." "It was the first time he'd lived in his own home and his family say he loved his independence." "95% of missing people are found within a week but after that the chances of you coming to harm increase." "The family knows that every minute that passes without good news can only bring bad news closer." "It is this not knowing, this is what drives you mad." "Not knowing." "It's ripping our hearts apart, in't it?" "The not knowing, waiting for a phone call all the time." "I mean, we take the house phone as well as the mobile phone to bed just hoping for a phone call overnight." " That's what we..." " I can't bear the thought of him just lying dead in a ditch somewhere and we don't know." "All these weeks later." "It's just horrible." "Josh is far from alone." "The National Crime Agency says there were more than 200,000 reports of missing people last year." "Well over half were about children." "That's around 350 kids every day." "Are you OK?" "You know, we understand it's obviously going to be a very worrying time for you." "Yeah." "The first details are often reported here." "OK, and so since then no-one at all has heard from him." "The Missing People helpline takes 54,000 calls annually." "Thanks very much." "We'll get to work on that straight away." "Thanks a lot." "Staff say there's always a reason why people walk out on their lives." "I've been here for over four years and I have no idea how many hundreds of different people that I've spoken to and I've never once had someone say," ""Well, I just fancied leaving this morning."" "There is always a reason." "It's never a simple thing to just to walk out." "It's not an easy thing to leave everything behind you." "The reasons people leave are often complex." "16-year-old Olivia Burton-Taylor left home in February." "This is Olivia four years ago, competing in the Horse Of The Year Show." "Her mum Louise runs a stable yard in Kent." "She and Olivia used to be a team." "I used to come out here about three o'clock in the morning and get all the ponies ready and everything and load them all up and then" "I would go and get her, she was still asleep." "And I would take her and wrap her up in a blanket and just pop her into the bed, in the horsebox, and we'd drive two-and-half hours, three hours." "We had brilliant times together, we were really close." "She never, ever wanted to go anywhere without me." "Ever." "And we just did everything together." "I just miss her so much." "Louise says her world began to fall apart two years ago when she found a love letter addressed to her little girl from a 25-year-old man sent from prison." "What age was Olivia when you found the letter?" " 14." " 14?" " Mmm." "And this is a 25-year-old man writing to her?" " How do you feel when you find that letter?" " I felt sick to the stomach." "I just couldn't believe it." "It's your little girl, it's your child." "You know?" "How can a man possibly - a grown adult man - want anything to do with a little child?" "Olivia was 15 when she first ran away with convicted criminal Jimmy Connors." "They were found after a police chase." "Connors was charged with child kidnapping, but was found not guilty, and Olivia ran away with him again." "The next time Louise saw Olivia, she was in hospital, recovering after a serious car crash." "She had ruptured her spleen, smashed her arm and she'd already had a major five-hour surgery on her arm, with pins and plates." "Mother and daughter met, but there was no reunion." "I tried talking to her." "She was just looking through me." "It wasn't my little girl." "It was like somebody else was there." "It was like somebody else." "Olivia has since run away twice more." "It's not unusual." "39% of people who come home will walk out again." "The experts say missing people need much more support when they do return." "There's no-one necessarily out there that will pick up this vulnerable person and work through with them what going missing has meant, what caused it, what the experience was like, and what happens next." "All children are supposed to be interviewed by local authorities when they return home." "But the service is patchy at best, and non-existent for adults." "We need help, guidance, education, public campaigns around missing, so that families are better able to talk about those experiences as people return, because what we've heard is that there's just silence." "So we need to do much, much better on point of return." "Back at Sawley, the search continues for 22-year-old Josh Cotton." "Josh, this is totally out of character for you." "You've never left your phone on the boat before." "Please get in touch soon." "His family make an appeal on Facebook." "I love you, Josh, and I miss you." "I just want you to get in touch." "His sister, Abi, has led the family's search." "They're getting more worried by the day, because they've discovered easy-going Josh was leading a double life." "The police have found along the way, speaking to neighbours and residents, that he's been depressed, he hasn't been to work since December." "So there was fictitious Josh's life, bless him, where everything was OK, and then reality, where it really wasn't." "And the family knew none of this?" "He'd been down, the odd few times I'd seen him." "He was, "Oh, I just feel a bit down."" "But, you know, everybody has down days." "But I feel bad because I just feel I should have seen something or I feel I should have seen the signs." "For him." "Divers, a helicopter and dozens of police officers from three forces have been looking for Josh." "Searching for missing people is time-consuming and expensive." "The police don't know how much they spend each year." "But one academic study has come up with a figure." "Well, we estimated around £800 million annually as the cost of the missing person investigations." "It three times more than robberies, it's four times more than burglaries." "It's an incredible cost to the police." "Even with as much as £800 million being spent, police chief Mike Veale admits they're still overwhelmed by the numbers of missing people." "We simply do not have the resources or the capability or capacity to deal with so many missing episodes." "It's almost sucking the resilience of the police service at this moment in time." "It is shocking the amount of time that we spend looking for missing people." "1522." "Sarah." "Just confirming there's a missing person reported from the Royal Edinburgh." "I'm with E division in Edinburgh." "Here, searching for missing people takes up more police time then any other matter." "This south side of Edinburgh is totally one of the busiest places for missing persons." "Got two hospitals." "They often phone because patients fail to return or they've walked out before being seen." "On top of that, we've got so many young children's units." "And their policy is just to report kids missing the minute they fail to come back at the time agreed." "The minute it gets reported, it's over to the police, really." "Children in care are three times more likely to run away than other kids." " Is it difficult?" " Is it difficult?" " Yeah." "It's one thing chasing bad guys, it's another thing looking for kids who may not even want to be found." "Frustrating, sometimes, yes, because if it's the same..." "We've got kids that have been reported 49, 50 times so far this year." "Inspector to Sarah, I would also like to check the CCTV, and search the grounds around the hospital, just in case she's still there." "Today there are 11 officers on shift at Howdenhall station." "Most are out looking for missing people." "We've got two officers at the hospital viewing CCTV, we've got two officers going to her home address and we've got another two officers going to the hospital as well to supplement the first two." "So you've got six officers involved in this one missing case?" "And two officers involved in another case which has been resolved." " Is this typical?" " Yeah, this is very typical." "The night shift gets even busier, when vulnerable youngsters are more likely to go missing." "Hi, Matt, I believe there's a report of a missing person." "Yes, a 15-year-old missing person reported this evening about an hour ago by her mother." "She was last seen about nine o'clock this morning by her mum, refusing to go to school." "I've got Seth going down." "This time it's a child from her family home." "It's the third time she's gone missing this week." "Police expect to find her safe, but must treat every report seriously." "Despite the fact she's been found safe and well on both occasions so far this week, we can't allow ourselves to become complacent." "What we've got is a 15-year-old girl who's been reported missing at this time of night and it's our priority to find her safe and well as soon as we can and return her home." "It's enormously challenging." "There is an element of frustration that creeps in." "However, over and above all that our primary function is to find these people and get them home." "So it may or may not be a long night." "So, yeah, it may be a long night for them." "Back at the station, the scale of the problem is clear." "Every officer on duty is now looking for missing people." "Between us leaving tonight and coming back, there's been a further three people reported missing in the south of Edinburgh." "Children, adults?" "Two children and one adult, and this is a typical night." "At this time of night in the south of Edinburgh, it's very typical." "The 15-year-old girl was returned to her family a few hours later." "All others who'd been missing were also found safe." "This is Andrew's bedroom." "But some families never get an answer." "It's actually where we've stored all our family photo albums, because we thought, let's have all the nice memories in one room." "Um..." "We have redecorated since he... disappeared." "We were conscious of doing a colour that we thought... ..he would be comfortable with if he came back, ever." "Andrew Gosden was just 14 when he walked away from his home in Doncaster." "That was nine years ago, and his family haven't seen him since." "And this is his blazer here." "That was his school blazer." "Tie is in here somewhere as well." "And that's the blazer he was wearing the morning he..." "He went missing?" "That's the last thing I saw him wearing as he went out of the door." "Andrew was...or is..." "I wish I knew what tense to speak about him in." "Um... very bright, very academically gifted." "He was very funny, witty." "He just made me smile all the time." "'When Andrew's disappearance was discovered, 'family and friends immediately start searching.'" "People got in their cars, people from the church, and had a look around the area whilst it was still light, but it soon became apparent that we couldn't find out where Andrew was." "Once it started to get dark, we went back home, produced a leaflet which we then took out the following day." "So you had a leaflet in production, as it were, within three hours of the alarm being raised?" "Yes, with his photograph on and "Have you seen this boy?"" "Some leaflets were handed out at Doncaster train station." "Three days later, they heard from a woman who worked at the ticket office." "Andrew had bought a one-way ticket to London." "We knew that he'd gone to King's Cross, we knew platform and time, we knew that he was on his own and we knew that he was safe and well when he reached King's Cross." "But the trail quickly ran cold." "It took three weeks for the police to track down CCTV images of Andrew at King's Cross." "These pictures were taken on Friday 14th September, 2007." "Andrew exits the station and disappears into the city." "It's the last image the family have of their son." "It's not the last image that I want in the photo album of our Andrew." "And it just makes me really sad, to be honest." "And sometimes you look at it and you just think, well," ""What on earth was going on in your head?" ""Where were you going, what were you doing," ""what were you thinking about?"" "The shocking truth is that nobody knows exactly how many youngsters go missing each year." "Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary says the police figures are unreliable." "It also says that police failings are leaving children who go missing at risk of serious harm." "We identified unacceptable inconsistencies in the way that the police service deals with missing children." "As a result, children are being left at risk of harm and they are at risk of exploitation, be it sexual exploitation, economic exploitation, criminal exploitation." "This is a very serious issue." "Do you accept that right now, children are being left at risk?" "I fully accept that." "That's quite shocking though, isn't it?" "I mean, just to be able to say, matter-of-factly," ""Yes, you are right, we've got a problem here."" "We HAVE got a problem here." "My responsibility is to raise the problem up the agenda so that we can have the same responses, the type of response that we're now creating in relation to child sexual exploitation." "I want missing people to go up everybody's agenda - not just the police service, but the government agenda and our local authority and partners' agenda." "That's it." " You don't mind me hollering at you, do you?" " Not at all." " Excuse me." " Thank you." "96% of missing people are eventually found safe and well." "But sometimes the search doesn't have a happy ending." " Is this the boat you would normally use?" " This is the boat." "It's the fastest boat you can row and still be able to lift a 20-odd-stone person straight over the gunwales." "George Parsonage has spent a lifetime searching Glasgow's River Clyde for missing people." "How many bodies have you taken from the river, do you think?" "500, 600." " That's an awful lot of people." " It's a lot of people." "Yeah." "But that's a guess." "I mean, you don't go counting." "You don't go counting." "What goes through your head when you actually bring the body" " to the surface?" " There's a lot of relief." "You know, you've brought closure to the family, and to see the relief on the family's faces is very, very rewarding." "But it can be very, very sad." "George has spent thousands of hours searching over the past 57 years." "That's what we use." "It's like a very, very small anchor." "It doesn't look much." "Today, he's looking for an 18-year-old woman who went missing on Friday night." "Saturday morning we started the search, and we've searched" "Saturday, Sunday, Monday and yesterday." " You're confident that she will be found?" " Oh, yeah." "She'll be found." "How can you be so sure?" "The river always gives up its dead." "Three weeks later, the river does just this, when George recovers the body of teenager Sarah Goldie, the young woman he was searching for." "300 miles south, another river has also given up its secrets." "We're on our way to Leicestershire." "I've just spoken to the family of Josh Cotton and they're utterly devastated." "They told me that last night, they got a call from the police telling them that the body of a man retrieved from the River Trent has been formerly identified as that of Josh." " This is the spot." " Oh, God, is it really?" " Yeah." "Josh's dad and sister Abi have come to the place his body was found just 48 hours ago." "Josh was just in there." "The family now believe Josh was unhappy because he was being bullied." "ABI SIGHS" "Here you are, my little Josh." "The police are not treating his drowning as suspicious." "Oh, Josh, I'll read you your card that I've done you." ""Dearest Josh, can't believe we will never see your face again" ""or hear your annoying laugh." ""Gone, but will never be forgotten." ""Sleep well, sweetheart." "Until we meet again." ""Rest in peace, all our love always," ""Abi, Johnny, Brendan, Harvey, and your little smelly moo."" "Love you, sweetheart." "Sleep easy." "SHE SOBS" "All right?" "Give us a hug." " Don't, you'll set me off." " TEARFULLY:" " I'm sorry, I'm sorry." "Just why?" "Why didn't he speak to somebody?" " What on earth was so bad...?" " Why, why, why, why?" "That's it." " That's all you can think." "Why?" " Why?" "And that's going to be the killer question" " for the rest of our lives, isn't it?" " It's a big word." " "Why."" "For Josh's family, the search is now over." "But nine years after schoolboy Andrew Gosden disappeared, his family still don't know what happened to him." "It is the not knowing that is the worst thing, because it just cycles round and round and round your head the whole time, every single day." "A new Missing Strategy is due from the Government later this year." "It's expected to deal with criticisms of the police, but will also look at the responsibilities of other agencies." "The fact of the matter is that the number of episodes of missing is going up year on year." "So I would say, by default, the summary could be, none of us are doing as much as we could do and we need to work more effectively together to reduce that number." "16-year-old Olivia is thought to be in northeast London, and police aren't just looking for her." "They've got an arrest warrant for the man she's believed to be with, convicted criminal Jimmy Connors." "I'm just living every day, wondering where she is." "It's just your worst nightmare, and, you know, the worst thing is is that you never, ever think it will happen to you." "It can happen to anyone, absolutely anyone." "Even if the police do eventually bring Olivia home, her mum knows she will still have to find a way to persuade her to stay." " She'll come to her senses, won't she, one day?" " She will." "Do you think she will, really?" "Or do you think she's going to live a life of misery with that bastard?" "Such a waste of...a life, isn't it?"