Katrice Lee: 'Frustrated' Hartlepool dad wants to meet Liz Truss in Downing Street to highlight 41-year-old case of missing daughter

Richard Lee from Hartlepool is seeking a meeting with Miss Truss in Downing Street for help in getting a public inquiry into investigations by officials into the disappearance of his daughter Katrice in what was then West Germany on her second birthday in 1981.

Richard met with Boris Johnson in May on a visit to the region after the then PM agreed to meet him “father to father”.

But Richard was disappointed it did not take place in Downing Street.

And after Mr Johnson was ousted from office, Richard is once again appealing for help from the top.

Katrice’s family have been given hope after the story of a woman from Pontefract who was recently reunited with her family after being stolen 53 years earlier.

Richard, from the Stockton Road area of town, said: "Boris’s final words to me were ‘I’ll be in touch’ and we have heard nothing. That was May 2.

“I want to meet Liz Truss at Downing Street for maximum coverage.

"It’s frustrating there has been a change in Prime Minister but I’m a determined person.

"What father would give up trying to find his daughter?”

Katrice’s family believe she is still alive somewhere in the world having been snatched to be a surrogate child for another family.

Richard is calling for an independent inquiry into investigations led by the Royal Military Police which admitted in 2012 that mistakes were made in the initial investigation.

A subsequent investigation, including the digging up of a river bank close to where Katrice vanished in Paderborn in 2018, was later scaled back after the MOD said all reasonable lines of inquiry had been pursued.

Richard’s concerns focus on three key areas of the investigation, including why it took six weeks for staff at the camp to be interviewed, the delay in the family’s DNA being put on an international database and a 36 year wait before a photo-fit of a suspect was released.

Regarding the case of Susan Gervaise who was found after so many years, Richard said: “It does prove that miracles do happen.

"Mine just hasn’t happened yet.”