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Down in Surrey, police still keep active Operation Scholar, the search for Ruth Wilson, a sixth-former who went missing 14 years ago. She left Dorking just after 4pm on 27 November 1995, and, instead of going home, took a taxi to an isolated pub on Box Hill. Intriguingly, she had ordered flowers for her parents to be delivered two days later. More significantly, police later learned that Ruth, the bookish-looking daughter of two teachers, was in the habit of going to the remote spot on the way home from school. (As an example of the almost limitless trials facing families of missing persons, the Wilsons were asked if they were willing to appear on a game show where the audience would vote on the best step the family could next take to try to get their daughter back. They declined.)

Although Missing People uses a specialist in age-progressed likenesses to portray people missing over the long term, there is a limit to what it, and the police, can do. So families hand out leaflets, put up posters, tramp the streets, offer rewards (£10,000 is not an uncommon amount), hire private investigators (an extensive search can cost more than £15,000), and even, as Kent Police told us, consult mediums. They also start groups on Facebook, and launch websites such as the one for Nicola Payne, who went off to collect clothes for her baby in December 1991, took a short cut across fields, and has not been seen since. Among the poignant messages on the site is one from her son Owen – now 17, but just seven months old when his mother disappeared: “I envy my older cousins who remember her well, and they tell me what a fun-loving girl she was… My one wish would be to have my mum found and to be able to understand the confusion, mystery and heartbreak of the past 17 years.”

Some do return. About 10 disappeared persons a week are found through the work of Missing People, among them Billy Andrews, who went missing from his family after his marriage broke up. He began sleeping rough, and defied all the efforts of his mother, Kathleen, and his four sisters to find him. Twelve years went by, and then Kathleen saw an advertisement for Missing People and rang. Within four weeks, the charity’s case managers had found him. Kathleen says: “One day I was watching my favourite soap when the phone rang. It was Billy. We both wept.” Billy says: “I was so happy when I got the phone call from Missing People telling me that my mum was trying to find me. To be back in touch with her and my sisters after so long was a dream come true.” So why did he lose touch? He felt he had let them down and was ashamed of the state he was in. He is now settled, and has remarried. “It is,” says Kathleen, “a second chance for all of us.”

Thousands of Billies, Bernards, Ruths and Andrews will join the ranks of the long-term missing this year. Maybe it isn’t so curious that they can elude all the tabs kept on us, all of our petty nannyings and risk assessments. We may have officials logging missing cars, we might microchip our dogs, and indelibly mark our possessions, but we’re awfully casual about lost humans. After all, in 2009 there is no government department responsible for listing and finding them. Odd place, Britain.

———The trafficked girls: They all exhibit a vulnerable prettiness———-

Among the passport pictures of the disappeared staring out from the Missing People web pages a sizeable number are of teenage girls of Far Eastern origin. Xia Wang, 17, has been missing from Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, since November 2006; Qin Wang, 16, from Bournemouth since January 2007; Yan He, 17, from Worthing since July 2007; Dung Thi Nguyen, 17, from Catford since April 2007; Lihua Hi, 16, from Birmingham since June 2006. There are many others. Having been brought to this country illegally, such girls – whose only common characteristic, says Missing People, is their region of origin and their vulnerable prettiness – are warned by those who transported them to trust absolutely no one. They are taken into care, but, a short while later, are often seen getting into a car driven by an older male oriental. They have been trafficked.

———-Britain’s unclaimed bodies: They lie refrigerated in Britain’s mortuaries————-

Who was the man known as Mr Seagull, whose body was found on Chesil Beach, Dorset, in 2002? Who was the white man aged between 30 and 40 killed at Canterbury by the London-bound train in October 2001? Who was the man whose badly burnt remains were found on Parley Common, Dorset, when firefighters tackled a heathland blaze in August 2006? Their bodies, and hundreds more, lie refrigerated in Britain’s mortuaries, awaiting identification. One reason there are so many is because there is no database of the DNA of missing people, which Dr Tim Clayton of the Forensic Science Service has described as “a national disgrace”. And an investigation in Scotland by the Daily Record last January found that police there have the DNA of just 34 of 450 long-term missing cases on their books.

—————-THE DISAPPEARED…—————–

Kevin Fasting

Age at disappearance: 50

Last Seen: 21 November 2003, leaving his Merseyside home for work.

Background: The father of three called himself “the worst father in the world” in a note found after he went missing.

Laura Haines

Age at Disappearance: 30

Last Seen: At her home in Bristol on 23 February 1997.

Background: Laura left two daughters behind. Investigators have looked into whether her disappearance is linked to previous relationship break-ups.

Alexander Sloley

Age at Disappearance: 16

Last Seen: Alexander was last seen by a friend in Edmonton, north London, on 2 August 2008.

Background: Alexander’s was one of the first cases to be publicised on nearly 13.5m milk cartons at Iceland, the supermarket chain.

Quentin Adams

Age at Disappearance: 40

Last Seen: Buying cigarettes in Banchory on 6 November 2008.

Background: The used-car salesman had been living with his sister, and left three children behind. He disappeared without his mobile phone or passport.

Joyce Wells

Age at disappearance: 72

Last Seen: At her Bexhill home on 22 November 2008.

Background: Joyce was about to visit her daughter but failed to make the trip. She left personal effects, including her handbag, behind.

Luke Durbin

Age at Disappearance: 19

Last Seen: Luke was last seen early on 12 May 2006 after a night clubbing with friends in Ipswich.

Background: Luke had gone missing before, though only for one week and in that time he had remained in contact with his sister. His mother has led the media campaign to locate him, appearing on TV appeals on numerous occasions.

Liz Chau

Age at Disappearance: 19

Last Seen: Walking to her home in West Ealing, London, 16 April 1999.

Background: Liz, a student at Thames Valley University, went missing shortly after handing in coursework and meeting a friend for a drink.

Bernard Coomber

Age at disappearance: 54

Last Seen: Around 10 January 2008, near his home in Kent.

Background: Struggled with unemployment. ‘Missing’ status means Anne, his sister, cannot sell or let his house.

Robbie Carroll

Age at Disappearance: 40

Last Seen: He disappeared from his home in Lincolnshire on 20 February 2006.

Background: The Cambridge graduate, who specialised in Italian Renaissance literature, had appeared unwell, according to friends. He was badly affected by the death of his mother.

Nicola Payne

Age at Disappearance: 18

Last Seen: Leaving her parents’ home in Coventry on 14 December 1991.

Background: A family website carries messages. A man was arrested in 2007, but the case is still open.

James Nutley

Age at Disappearance: 25

Last Seen: In Tenby, 24 October 2004.

Background: James was with around 20 other keen golfers on an annual trip to Tenby, West Wales. He failed to return to their hotel after a night out with friends, and his driver’s licence was later found on the town’s South Beach.

Ruth Wilson

Age at Disappearance: 16

Last Seen: Leaving her home in Betchworth in November 1995.

Background: Family raised alarm after she missed school; it was found she took a taxi to an isolated beauty spot.

Andrew Dill

Age at Disappearance: 38

Last Seen: 28 April 2003, at Hednesford train station, en route to his home in Birmingham.

Background: Andrew, a father of three, left no indication of his plans, but police have focused on Manchester, Wolverhampton and Cannock – as well as the Midlands area.

Paige Chivers

Age at Disappearance: 15

Last Seen: Leaving her Blackpool home, August 2007.

Background: Paige left home with a packed bag. Police have followed up sightings – and the possibility she may have joined a travelling fair.

• This article was first published by the British newspaper, The Independent on October 11 2009.