Hartlepool dad of missing Katrice Lee hopes to meet the Prime Minister
The two year-old has been missing for more than 40 years
A dad from Hartlepool, whose daughter has been missing for more than 40 years, is hoping progress will be made with the new Government.
Two year-old Katrice Lee disappeared in Paderborn in Germany in 1981.
Her dad, Richard, has been fighting ever since for UK authorities to help find her.
He said: "Sir Keir Starmer, in my opinion, with his background of legality with being a solicitor then a barrister, hopefully I can rely on him pointing me in the right direction. I want to get a meeting with him obviously, a one-to-one, because I felt that the last Government didn't give me a lot of time that I should have had. It was a very brief visit.
"My next move now is to appeal to Sir Keir Starmer for a meeting one-to-one, father-to-father and also go through the correct motions of going through our new MP, Jonathan Brash, introduce myself to him, and see if he can from a Labour perspective, push my case forward.
"In November, I'm going out to the actual place in Germany, an exhibition in the building where she went missing, so that in itself is going to be quite traumatic for myself and also, Katrice's sister Natasha. Everyone tends to forget that she does have a sister and hopefully from there, it generates that further interest.
"It's amazing how many people since my visit to Downing Street have joined Katrice's page and weren't aware of Katrice's story. That's more important to me than anything else. Hopefully we'll get more supporters but the support we've had has been fantastic.
"In the very near future, there's going to be a pictorial book coming out where the members raised ÂŁ10,000 which I'll be forever grateful for, because there's the legacy of Katrice's story being out there in the general public."