Amy Fitzpatrick went missing on New Year's Day. She had left her best friend's house on the Riviera del Sol, Costa del Sol at around 10pm after spending the day with her visiting amusement arcades. Amy had almost decided to spend the night with her best friend Ashley Rose and had been getting ready for bed, but her friend's mum Debbie had been concerned that she hadn't touched base with her family. It was for this reason that 15-year-old Amy went home.She had brought no clothing with her, no telephone and most important of all, she had no money or passport. And she was never seen again.It makes her disappearance all the more sinister. From being out there, speaking to her best friend Ashley and her mum Audrey Fitzpatrick, Amy had no plans of running away, and my own experience of investigating missing person cases backs this up.She left that night around 10pm, the investigators should discount any idea that this girl ran away. We all must give up the myth that this child ran away. Amy Fitzpatrick, in my opinion, has been abducted.
Here we are more than 220 days later and the family have searched extensively for Amy. They have delivered missing person posters around Europe and attended the EU parliament. There have been sightings as far away as Algeria, but still Amy remains missing.I imagine that Amy's last-minute decision to go home is vital in the investigation -- there could be no premeditated plan.My own belief is that this is an opportunistic crime. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The road she travelled home is a lonely place. I believe Amy was walking that perilous lane on her own when an opportunistic predator saw her.
Spanish officers searched for Amy, but could more have been done? I saw the ravine they searched. It was half a mile long and 200ft to 300ft deep, a canyon, the search, from my experience as a garda, couldn't be said to be conclusive.
Amy's parents remain inconsolable. Their biggest hope may soon become to recover her body for a Christian burial, to have closure.You can never think of Amy's disappearance without thinking of that of Maddie McCann, who went missing in the neighbouring country of Portugal.I was out in Spain during the initial search for Amy. It never got the publicity of Maddie McCann's disappearance.
I understand not as a former garda but as a parent of a child that they still have hope and I don't want the Fitzpatrick family to lose hope.