Hartlepool dad of Katrice Lee wants meeting with Liz Truss

The father of a girl who went missing as a two-year-old in Germany in 1981 has said he wants to meet PM Liz Truss.

Katrice Lee, from Hartlepool, vanished on her birthday near a British military base in Paderborn.

Dad Richard Lee said he felt "bitterly let down" after a meeting with then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson in May.

He added he wanted "maximum coverage" for his daughter's disappearance. An MoD spokesperson said a review had found no "new lines of inquiry".

Mr Lee believes his daughter was abducted and the case has been raised again in recent months in the House of Commons.

Last November Mr Johnson said he would meet Mr Lee "father to father" and it was hoped the meeting would take place in Downing Street.

Then a date for a meeting there in March was cancelled due to the situation in Ukraine.

A planned meeting between Mr Lee and Margaret Thatcher in 1982 was also cancelled because of the Falklands War.

Mr Lee said he was left "angry and upset" in May after his local MP, Conservative Jill Mortimer, called him and invited him to come to her Hartlepool office where on arrival he was told he was going to meet Mr Johnson.

Mr Lee said he did not get any answers: "I've been arguing my daughter's case for incompetence throughout the MoD and military system since 1981 when I started my fight with Margaret Thatcher.

"I want a meeting to be arranged at Downing Street, the last meeting I had was with Boris Johnson and as we are all aware he was pushed out and didn't complete the task in hand, although the last thing he did say in the meeting was that he'd be in touch and he has failed to do this."

Katrice had been with her mother Sharon, from Gosport, at a Naafi supermarket when she disappeared.

The Royal Military Police (RMP) has previously apologised for failings in its investigations, which included delays in interviewing key witnesses and not releasing a photofit of a suspect for 36 years.

In 2012 the RMP reopened the investigation under the title Operation Bute, which has now completed all active lines of inquiry. Two-and-a-half years ago the Provost Marshall decided to stop active investigations.

Mr Lee, who served in the military for 34 years, told BBC Radio Tees he would "never give up" on his daughter's case, which he wanted someone to look at with a "magnifying glass".

"I'll never give up and I don't think any parent would," he said.

"There is not one person that has been prepared to stick their head above the parapet or swim against the political stream.

"What I need is a person that's quite prepared to say 'look there's been incompetence from day one, the family deserves justice'."

An MoD spokesperson said: "Our thoughts and sympathies remain with Katrice Lee's family. A review of the investigation in 2019 did not identify any new lines of inquiry and the Lee family were briefed in person on the outcome at the time."

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