Mum of missing daughter on heartbreaking gesture with her empty house

10 March 2024 , 19:51

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The mum of missing chef Claudia Lawrence wants her daughter’s house to be used for a good cause.

As she shows me around the empty terraced cottage, Joan Lawrence says she has already spoken to City of York Council about what she could do with the property. Joan says: “I would like the house to be used for a charitable purpose. Maybe it could be used by someone in need, whether it be a family who are homeless, or someone who has had to escape their own home.”

“It could be used as a safe house for someone who has suffered domestic abuse. I am in talks with the council regarding options and how the house can be put to best use. It could be even used as a community project to help people in need.”

She adds of the house: “It’s so haunting coming back in but I’m tied to it now. It takes so much out of me every time I walk through the front door. It’s a nightmare but I have to come every two weeks to comply with the building’s insurance. Every time I come here, it’s heartbreaking.”

Claudia was 35 when she was last seen on March 18, 2009. She worked in kitchens at the University of York’s Goodricke College from 6am to 2pm. Later that day she told her mother in a phone call she was at home and planned to have an early night.

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Just like Joan’s heart, that home in the Heworth area of York has been desolate ever since. As we enter, Joan picks up a letter from the doormat. It’s from the NHS to “the occupier”.

Joan at Claudia’s house in Heworth, York (Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)

It brings back painful memories for Joan, of TV licensing authorities chasing missing Claudia for payment. Joan sadly points out damaged plasterwork and Claudia’s broken belongings, including picture frames, a vase and a mirror.

Cobwebs hang from the ceiling all over the house which appears stuck in a timewarp. A toastie maker is still lying on the kitchen counter. “So much has happened in 15 years,” she says. “It’s a nightmare. It feels like a lifetime, but even worse, a life sentence. The suffering is unbearable. I try my best to keep going, every day, but the pain never goes away. It’s there as soon as I wake up every morning, and there when I go to bed every night.” Talking about having gone through another Mother’s Day without her daughter, she adds: “I look out of the window and wonder where Claudia is.”

She says every Mother’s Day she re-reads the cards Claudia sent to her at her own home in Malton, North Yorks. “It breaks my heart to think I may never get another one from Claudia,” she adds.

Claudia was reported missing on March 20, 2009, after missing two shifts and an arrangement to meet a friend. At first the case was treated as a missing person inquiry. It was only five weeks later that police said they were treating it as a murder investigation.

It has been a tough weekend for Joan, who classes Mother’s Day weekend as the anniversary of Claudia going missing. She spent the day with her eldest daughter, Ali. “I’m always very conscious that I have two daughters and Ali has lost her sister too,” she says.

Claudia was 35 when she went missing (PA)

She was reporting missing in March 2009 (PA)

It was Ali who first heard the shattering news on the Friday before Mother’s Day that Claudia was missing, in a call from her father Peter Lawrence. He died aged 74 in February 2021. It was followed by a call from a police officer known to the family, who promised: “We are pulling out all the stops to find Claudia.”

Months later, when Joan was finally allowed back into her daughter’s home, which had been treated as a crime scene, she was shocked at the state it was in. She said: “The police left it a complete mess. Plaster got damaged, the stair carpet was ripped out, so now the staircase is bare. Vases got broken and smashed.”

She recalls how Claudia bought the house in 2007, around 18 months before she went missing. “Claudia loved the original fireplace from 1823. It’s still got the original Victorian tiles,” she says. “She liked old properties with character. She kept everything in good order, she worked very hard for it. She worked extra hours, she did overtime, she did bar work. If there was a conference at the university, she would do extra hours.”

In the lounge on the table there are gold Christmas decorations Joan left there. Poignantly, on the mantelpiece sits a small candle. Joan says: “That’s the original candle from the last Christmas we had together.” In December 2008, Claudia had also been working in the Nag’s Head, a pub you can see from her bedroom window. It was where she had arranged to meet her friend on the last day she was seen.

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Passing slowly through each room, Joan checks all the lights are working and shakes her head, still dismayed, as she points out the damage. There are faded pictures on the wall and worn cardboard boxes full of kitchen pans lying around. In one box there are VHS videotapes with handwritten labels.

'It was obvious someone had been in and rearranged everything' (Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)

One says Robbie Williams. They lie next to some romantic fiction, including Marian Keyes’ 2000 novel Sushi for Beginners. Joan brightens for a second, as she reminds me Claudia was musical, saying: “She used to play the flute, and she loved James Galway.”

She then discusses the niggling doubts she felt when police talked her through the case in its early days. “When the police showed me the pictures of the house, it was all too immaculate,” she says. “Claudia was tidy but it was as if someone had cleaned up. It was obvious someone had been in and rearranged everything.”

“There was a pair of slippers, very old-fashioned slippers. I thought ‘they’re not Claudia’s’. They were brand new. She wouldn’t wear things like that. I was shown the pictures of the house but by then it was too late. I should have been shown them right at the beginning. Then there were searches carried out too late.” Everything goes back to the beginning, the first 72 hours. Until that’s solved. It’s just a nightmare.”

She said potential evidence was also discovered in the house after a new police detective took over Claudia’s murder investigation. “There’s still some DNA that hasn’t been traced that was found,” Joan claims. As we move upstairs, Joan has to tread carefully up the stairs to avoid exposed nails, because of the carpet having been removed.

'I can feel myself getting very anxious' says Joan (Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)

In Claudia’s bedroom, her bedstead is on its side and the sunbed upright. Claudia’s cuddly toy dog is left in the front bedroom. There’s an overwhelming sadness in the house, a reminder of what Joan is going through still.

She says of putting the house to charitable use: “At the moment it needs a good sort-out. It would need a good coat of paint, some plaster work and new carpets to make it habitable. It feels like a huge task for me. I’m 80, so trying to sort these sort of things feels quite the battle.”

In the garden, bramble has taken over but Joan feels it could make a community project as gardening can be therapeutic. As the anniversary of Claudia’s last sighting approaches, Joan adds: “I can feel myself getting very anxious. It brings everything back and feels like yesterday since Claudia went missing.”

Joan adds: “It’s also very hard as a lot of support out there is around bereavement, not about living in a state of not knowing. I feel haunted by the house and haunted by thoughts about what has happened to her.”

As we lock up and leave, Joan tells me sadly: “I shouldn’t have to be a detective but if anyone knows anything, they can come to me.”