DARTFORD & GREENWICH: Mum's seven-year search for 'murdered' son (From News Shopper)

DARTFORD & GREENWICH: Mum's seven-year search for 'murdered' son

8:20am Wednesday 9th June 2010 in News By Mark Chandler

A HEARTBROKEN mum is appealing for information on her son’s disappearance seven years ago.

Neil Nortrop, aged 32, also known as Neil McGarthland, vanished in 2003 while visiting a friend in Greenwich and Dartford.

Police treated the disappearance as murder but, despite the arrest of a man and woman from Greenwich in 2005, no charges were ever brought and Mr Nortrop’s body was never found.

Mother Pam Nortrop, 69, from Brixham in Cornwall, said her son left her home on June 10, 2003, and she last heard from him in a phone call the following day.

She said: “The last thing police have come up with is he made a phone call early on June 12.

“I’m just hoping we can jog someone’s memory or that this will jolt their conscience.”

Mrs Nortrop says she has become increasingly reclusive since her son’s disappearance but cannot bring herself to move house in case one day he returns.

She said: “The worst thing of it all is not knowing where he is. If he’s not alive, I need to know where his body is so he can be laid to rest properly.

“I can’t believe he’s definitely dead - I’ve still got that tiny bit of hope.”

In the UK a person can be pronounced legally dead if they have disappeared for seven years or more.

Mrs Nortrop said: “Seven years might be a significant anniversary but it’s with me every single day of the year.”

The fisherman and father-of-two was also a bodybuilder and Thai boxer.

He was 5ft 11in, of muscular build with cropped fair hair, blue eyes and diamond studs in his teeth.

When last seen he wore a thick gold chain and drove a dark blue Ford Mondeo car.

If you have any information, contact the Missing People charity on 0500 700 700.