Family’s grief ‘made worse by the media’

A CLOSE friend of the father of Claudia Lawrence has spoken out over rogue elements of the media which compounded the heartache of the missing woman’s family.

Martin Dales, who has acted as Peter Lawrence’s spokesman since the York University chef went missing in 2009, claimed that her family and friends had been harassed and their privacy intruded upon by a small section of the media.

Mr Dales, from Old Malton in North Yorkshire, said he felt evidence presented to the Leveson Inquiry into Press standards echoed the experiences of the Lawrence family. He revealed he spoke to the managing editor of one national newspaper to complain about the coverage in the weeks after Miss Lawrence vanished.

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Mr Dales said: “I do feel that 95 per cent of the media have been extremely supportive, but there is a small element that has not.

“There have been issues with accuracy, harassment and intrusion into the family’s grief. The family’s heartache has been compounded by certain sections of the media, whose coverage was certainly not helpful in the ultimate aim of finding out what happened to Claudia.”

One of the biggest grievances of Miss Lawrence’s relatives has been the salacious stories which have probed into the missing woman’s love life. National newspaper reports have claimed she had up to 40 lovers – a figure which has been rubbished by detectives.

But police have admitted her tangled love life, which did include relationships with married men, has hampered the inquiry as former lovers were unwilling to come forward.

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Miss Lawrence was aged 35 when she was last seen walking near her Heworth Road home in York on March 18, 2009, although police have been unable to find any trace of her. The missing person inquiry was upgraded to a murder investigation the month after she vanished.