Our fight for JUSTICE

For four decades, one couple never gave up on their daughter

- TRACY GAYTON

As Val Earl clutches the A paperwork proving her marathon fight for justice is over, her mind returns to a day long ago, and a photo of a stroll along a beach with her daughter Jessie.

'Today that day at the seaside is just a distant memory - although one that I can't forget. Because a week later, Jessie went missing,' remembers Val, now 90, from Eltham, south London. 'There was no further trace of her for a decade.'

Now, over 40 years after that last photo of Jessie, Val and her husband John, 94, have finally achieved justice for their daughter, who they've always believed was murdered.

'My last day with Jessie was at Margate in May 1980, Val recalls. 'We paddled in the waves, ate chips, visited the arcades, creating memories I treasured in the years to come.'

When she disappeared, Jessie was 22 and a second-year art student in Eastbourne.

The weekend after the Margate trip, she was due home, but never showed.

'Next day, when we hadn't heard from her, I started feeling anxious,’ recalls Val. ‘I took a train to Eastbourne. At her rented flat, there was no answer. Another tenant let me in.’

Inside the flat, the window was open, curtains fluttered in the breeze, and a coffee mug was on the floor. ‘It looked just as if she’d stepped out for a few minutes,’ says Val. ‘But I knew something was wrong. I went to the nearby police station to report her missing.’

As days passed without news of Jessie, the authorities treated her as a missing person.

‘We lived in an agony of fear and worry,’ John says, remembering.