Dear Prime Minister,

I am delighted to learn that you have asked the Met police to investigate the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and I believe they should have been involved much earlier in this investigation. When someone goes missing in a foreign country, the difficulties for their loved ones in discovering the truth during such a traumatic investigation are multiplied and horrendously difficult.

Tragically, Madeleine’s case is just one of many involving unsolved missing British citizens overseas where foul play is suspected, with anguished families remaining clueless about what happened. Please help them too and don’t turn a blind eye on their personal tragedies. This is why I am writing to you on their behalf, so you can show them the same level of compassion and offer them the same police support from our highly skilled British officers.

These people do not have the same successful PR machinery as the McCanns. They suffer the same pain, and I wonder how they feel knowing that so much effort is being put – and quite rightly so – into finding Madeleine – while the same effort is not made on their behalf. Each missing person should be treated the same by our police, they are of equal value.

Here are just three cases you might like to also ask the Met to take up straight away:

1. Steven Cook, vanished on the first day of his holiday with friends in Crete in September 2005.

2. Eddie Gibson, 19, failed to make a flight home from his trip to Cambodia and has been missing since October 2004.

3. British ex-pat Carole Day, 56, who lived in Hong Kong, vanished off the face of the earth since last September.

Please recognise that the families of these missing people, and others like them, deserve to have their case reviewed buy the Met police as well as the McCanns. Their families all shed tears of hopelessness and frustration at their situation, not knowing who to turn to for help in discovering the truth about their missing loved ones. As a parent yourself, you must surely empathise with their situation.

Kind regards,

Ellee

In memory of those who are still missing.

UPDATE: Kerry Needham, the mother of toddler Ben Needham who was abducted from the Greek island of Kos 20 years ago, naturally has the same views as myself. I hope she gets the same support from the Met.