'Help me find her killer'

2:50pm Wednesday 15th August 2001

Murdered Sharon Malone's grieving father this week spoke of the nightmare surrounding her disappearance and death.

Fighting back tears, Harry Clinch, 62, from Barnet, pleaded for those who know who killed Sharon to spare his family further misery.

"I don't want vengeance, I just want to know what happened and that my grandchildren are all right," he said.

"Someone out there knows for the sake of our family please come forward and help the police."

Mrs Malone, 28, vanished from her home in Cranborne Crescent, Potters Bar, on November 28, 1999.

Detectives launched a murder hunt after her badly-decomposed and battered body was discovered four months later. The police investigation has been hampered by the disappearance of her husband Gary Malone, 46.

He fled to Spain in January last year with the couple's two young children, Adam, six, and Robert, three, and is now thought to be living on the Costa del Sol.

Mr Clinch, a safety officer for a telecommunications firm, was planning to visit his grandchildren next month. But he suffered a breakdown when photographs arrived in mid-June showing the youngsters cuddling a mystery woman.

"I saw that picture and just couldn't take it anymore, I had a breakdown," he admitted. "I feel very angry Gary hasn't come back to help sort this out."

Just months before Sharon's disappearance, Mr Clinch's wife Elizabeth died of cancer and he is now undergoing trauma counselling.

"I haven't been able to take it all on board, my mind wouldn't let me. I have been blocking it out subconsciously. I would have gone round the twist if I had tried to accept it all in one go."

Mr Clinch added: "We had to believe Sharon would come home. But by the time she was found it had been so long and she hadn't contacted her children in my heart I knew but my mind wouldn't let me believe it.

"Where there is a last glimmer of hope you pray for it."

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