‘I all the time feared a knock on door when my brother was lacking – now we have now an opportunity’

Jess Phillips remembers the fear of the knock at the door.

The Home Office Minister spent years worrying about her brother Luke, who spent time sleeping rough during a battle with drug and alcohol addiction that lasted more than two decades. He is now sober and the siblings have rebuilt their relationship.

But the heartache was brought home to her again as she visited the Missing People charity this week to hear from staff and families about its vital work. The Mirror is raising money for Missing People – the only UK charity supporting those affected by a disappearance – this Christmas as more families than ever prepare to spend the festive period worrying about their loved ones.

At the charity’s HQ in Mortlake, south-west London, Ms Phillips said: “Imagine the worst thing, it’s torture. It seems like torture to me. These mothers sat in front of me today, feeling like they can’t get what they need for their kids, that’s torture in and of itself.”

She added: “There was a case – and this strikes a chord with me – of a sister trying to find her homeless, drug-addicted brother so she can help him. They are going to help find him. I have literally lived through this situation.”

Urging people to back our appeal, Ms Phillips said: “They are doing amazing things at this organisation and they really need support. Imagine that you wake up on Christmas Day and you don’t know where one of your family is.

“We’re all sat there preparing their dinner, aren’t we. We’re all sat there thinking, ‘I’ve got to make this many pigs in blankets because there’s nine people coming’. Imagine if you didn’t know where one of them was and you weren’t sure whether the police would be knocking on your door by the end of the day.

“As a family member you learn to live with that possibility of the knock on the door at the end of the day. You have to grow up learning to live with the idea that somebody will knock on your door and tell you that your loved one’s dead. You learn to live with somebody who is exploited, chaotic, and that’s horrendous.”

She added: “It does really resonate with me. I feel like I got a second chance with my brother because he’s now well. But I walk in there and there’s a sister looking for her brother. I just think, ‘Oh gosh I hope she finds him and I hope that it’s not awful and there’s peace for them’. Because we have peace.”

Someone is reported missing every 90 seconds in the UK and more families are being thrust into agonising uncertainty. Recent figures show a 9% rise in the number of children reported missing each year, up from 69,050 in 2021-22 to 75,422 in 2022-23.

There has also been an increase in the total going missing, from 166,463 to 171,192.

Ms Phillips said: “Speaking to one of the staff who deals with people who are long term missing (about) a mother not knowing where her 22-year-old son is. I’ve got a 20-year-old son. I don’t know how people get up.

“The woman said to me, ‘She thinks he’s alive, I think he’s alive. I’m there for her.” Ms Phillips went on: “I’m just grateful that people have got someone.

“I’ve dealt with some of the worst things, I’ve seen some of the most harrowing cases of torture and violence. But I can’t fathom that as a mother, just being like they’ve just disappeared. It’s unimaginable. It’s what you fear, especially as a parent.”

The top minister said the police and other agencies on the ground need to work closely together to ensure people don’t fall through the gaps. “It’s our job from the centre to make sure that system operates everywhere,” she said. “There will always be cracks in people with very complex lives. But you have to try and polyfiller as much as you possibly can.”

Rising problems with children and young people’s mental health are playing a role across the board, from school attendance to work. “Any government that said at the moment there wasn’t a crisis in children’s mental health services and a problem to be solved hasn’t spoken to any children recently,” she said.

Ms Phillips acknowledged that Black people and those from other minority ethnic communities often get treated differently to white missing persons cases. She said: “I spoke to two women today, one Black woman and one White woman, both with terribly harrowing stories about their kids.

“But some of the differences that sprung out in their cases seem to me… well it wasn’t a surprise. I represent Birmingham so I am only too aware of the different disparities that can exist in different communities.”

The Home Office is looking at disparities linked to missing person’s cases with the research to be used to inform police work, she said. “This is not something that is being ignored or going like, ‘well that’s just the way it is’,” she said. “It’s totally unacceptable.”