UK police forces receive, on average, 300,000 calls relating to missing persons every year – nearly 600 reports a day. About half of this number will go on to be officially recorded as missing, of which around 11 per cent will be classified as high-risk and vulnerable. Over 50 per cent will be between the ages of twelve and seventeen and many of these will fall into the ‘absent’ or ‘run-away’ category. A small majority (about 57 per cent) will be girls. Mercifully, many children return or are found alive but more than 16,000 will remain ‘lost’ for a year or more.
