"Sifting through decades-old files and harnessing the reach of social media, a little-known unit in the West Midlands has solved more than 240 missing person cold cases in just three and a half years."
"None of them have a voice today. A lot of them have been forgotten. A lot of people don't even know they've been missing. I think they deserve for their story, their name, their face, to actually be put out there."
"Alongside the charity Missing People, The Independent is aiming to raise 165,000 to launch SafeCall a free new service to help the 70,000 children reported missing each year find support and safety no matter what."
"The team's most significant breakthrough came with one of the UK's longest-running missing person cases: the 52-year disappearance of Sheila Fox, who vanished from Coventry aged 16 in 1972."
The West Midlands Police long-term complex team is a five-person unit established in April 2022 to re-investigate unresolved missing-person cases. The unit reviewed decades-old files and used social media outreach to resolve more than 240 cold cases in three and a half years. Active caseload numbers fell from over 320 unsolved cases to 79. Officers take on stalled investigations, including cases tracing back half a century. The unit secured a major breakthrough in the 52-year disappearance of Sheila Fox from Coventry. A fundraising campaign with the charity Missing People aims to launch SafeCall to support missing children.
Read at www.independent.co.uk
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