MCCANN MOVE HELPS RELATIVES ‘IN DARK' - Express

**bb1** Sun Jul 24, 2011 5:14 pm

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/260672/McCann-move-helps-relatives-in-dark-

Sunday July 24,2011
By James Murray
KATE McCANN has helped to persuade MPs to demand groundbreaking support for families of missing loved ones.
Kate and the mothers of two other missing children addressed an All-Party Parliamentary Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults.
She was joined by Nicki Durbin, whose son Luke disappeared from Ipswich in 2006 aged 19, and Sarah Godwin, whose son Quentin was 18 when he vanished in New Zealand in 1992.
Kate painted a graphic picture of how she and husband Gerry dealt with the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine in Portugal four years ago.
“As human beings we are not equipped to deal with such profound and extreme, devastating emotion and neither are our friends and family,” she told MPs. “The ramifications of an event like this are huge. We are medically trained and we couldn’t function. It is of paramount importance that psychological support is offered to the family.
“It is critical that all families have constant, continuous lines of communication and a point of contact with the police who they can exchange information with.
“To be left in the dark when your child is missing is unbearable and bordering on the inhumane.”
Her pleas and those from other families spurred the group to make 12 key recommendations.
Among them, families would always have contact details for an officer familiar with their case, and there would be better identification of links between missing children and child sexual exploitation.