Katrice Lee

Iain Wright Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I am honoured to have been able to secure this debate on behalf of my constituent, Mr Richard Lee, on the disappearance of his daughter, Katrice, although extremely saddened that I have had to secure such a debate. I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting me permission to speak on behalf of Mr Lee on the Floor of the House and to set out his concerns regarding the handling of this distressing case. I hope, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you will pass on my thanks to Mr Speaker for allowing me to do so. I also pay tribute to the great, unstinting and diligent work carried out by the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage)—Mrs Lee and her daughter are constituents of hers—who, I believe, will want to catch your eye later, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr Lee served in the British Army for 34 years and was considered to have provided exemplary service to Queen and county. The facts of the case, as they are known, are simple to relay and yet horrifyingly tragic. On 28 November 1981—her second birthday—Katrice Lee went missing from a NAAFI supermarket in Schloss Neuhaus, near Paderborn, Germany. Katrice and her mother had gone to the supermarket to buy things for Katrice’s birthday party. It is every parent’s worst nightmare: after turning her back for a moment to pick up some crisps for her daughter’s party, Katrice’s mother found that she had vanished. In the 31 years since then, no trace of Katrice or what became of her has ever been discovered.

As a father, I know the nauseating feeling people get when their child is out of their sight for just a moment in a public place. Every parent has experienced it, if only fleetingly. Mr Lee has told me that he has held on to that feeling for more than 30 years. I cannot think of anything worse.

The investigation to find Katrice was botched from the very start. It appears that, because Katrice was the daughter of a serving British soldier stationed in Germany, there was considerable uncertainty as to who should take the lead in the investigation—whether it should be the Royal Military Police or the German authorities—and that valuable time, resources and evidence were either wasted or lost as this tussle over territorial jurisdiction and responsibility was debated. As a result, border staff were not notified of Katrice’s disappearance immediately, despite the fact that Paderborn is only two hours’ drive from the borders of the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as the northern ports of West Germany. No road blocks or checks were put in place, even though autobahn 33 cuts through Paderborn. Staff in the NAAFI supermarket on the shop floor and the tills where Katrice was last seen were not interviewed until six weeks after she went missing. Almost even worse, a sergeant-major at the base, who was close to the family and who had even looked after Katrice’s sister the week after she went missing, has only in the past month— 31 years after the disappearance—been identified as a key witness and interviewed by the authorities. How many other key witnesses and how much vital evidence have been lost due to the inadequate and incompetent handling of this case in the early days and weeks after Katrice went missing?

The family believe that the Royal Military Police were led quickly to an early conclusion by the German police inquiry that Katrice had wandered off out of the supermarket and had tragically drowned in the nearby river. However, the family strongly believe that that is simply implausible. It is difficult to believe that a two-year-old could wander out of a busy supermarket, past a crowd of shoppers, down a ramp, past a female ticket seller, across a crowded car park and then walk alone and undetected for more than 200 metres before somehow falling into the river.

Katrice had a real phobia of water, and the family strongly believe that, even if one could accept that she could emerge undetected at the water’s edge, she would have gone nowhere near the river. In addition, the river at that point had storm grates attached to it, but no evidence, such as a piece of clothing, has ever been found to have been captured by the grates in the river. The river has never given up any evidence that Katrice fell in, and yet that has been the authorities’ accepted scenario, without any tangible evidence, for many months and years.

The investigation has been subject to a catalogue of errors for decades. At the time of her disappearance, Katrice had a turn in her left eye—as did her sister—that would need corrective surgery at some point when she turned nine or 10. The Lee family raised that point personally with the officer heading the investigation, as they believed that it was a relatively unusual characteristic that could be used as part of the case and identified as a potential line of inquiry. Six months after informing the head of the investigation about the matter, the family asked the investigating officer whether progress had been made, only to be told by the officer in charge that he denied all knowledge of the information and informed that it was a “figment of the Lees’ imagination”. It does not seem unreasonable or particularly onerous for Interpol to have carried out a check of any medical procedures on a turn in a 10-year-old’s left eye in Germany or elsewhere on the continent in about 1989 or 1990, but no such lines of inquiry were pursued.

In February 2001, police and Army investigators took blood samples from Mr Lee and the whole family in the hope that advances in DNA analysis and technology would provide fresh leads. The DNA samples were to be placed on an Interpol database. However, earlier this year, some 30 years after Katrice went missing and more than a decade after the original samples had been provided, my constituent and the rest of the family were asked once again for samples. Despite the requests from Mr Lee, no explanation has ever been given for the second request. My constituent does not know whether the original DNA samples have been lost, degraded, used or checked against criminal evidence or hospital records.

It is little wonder, given what the family have been put through by the sheer incompetence of the investigation, which, let us not forget, came on top of their distress over their missing Katrice, that trust has broken down.

In a letter to me dated 6 July 2012, the Minister for the Armed Forces, the right hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), who at that time had responsibility for defence personnel, welfare and veterans, stated:

“the Royal Military Police are conducting a thorough reinvestigation of the circumstances surrounding Katrice’s disappearance, and it is hoped that the application of modern investigative techniques may bring new information to light. However, this is a sizable task which initially involves the review of thousands of documents, and will understandably take some time.”

Although I welcome the reinvestigation of the case, that comment from the Minister worries me greatly. It sounds like a classic case of kicking the matter into the long grass to get the Lee family off the Royal Military Police’s back for a while and to keep the embarrassments relating to the initial handling of the case out of the public domain. That is why it is vital that we have transparency in this case.

Will the Minister, who is a decent and honourable man, resolve tonight to undertake a number of things? Will he provide, here and now on the Floor of the House, a firm commitment on when precisely the reinvestigation will be completed? The family want not a vague promise, but a definite date for its conclusion in the next few weeks or months.

Will the Minister go further and pledge to commission an independent investigation or inquiry into the Royal Military Police’s handling of the case? I am concerned that embarrassments about the way that the case was initially dealt with and subsequently handled over many years have led to a cover up of the facts. A reinvestigation by the Royal Military Police of a case handled by the Royal Military Police does not fill me with confidence that all possible criticisms and flaws will be brought to light. Only an impartial and independent review will do that. Will the Minister pledge to have one?

Will the Minister also pledge to give the family access to the case files? I understand the point fully that such access may hamper the independence of a future trial, but for goodness’ sake, this case is 31 years old. The family holds more experience and expert knowledge on this matter than any other group. In looking at the files, they might see holes, discrepancies or potential lines of inquiry that might not otherwise be apparent. Will the Minister ensure that access to the case files is granted to the family?

The family would also like to meet the Prime Minister. He has met the families of other missing children, but not the Lees. He stated in a letter to the hon. Member for Gosport that he is too busy. I want the Prime Minister to meet Mr Lee, father to father, and for him to pledge that all the necessary resources of his Administration will be made available to help the Lee family receive answers. Will the Minister facilitate such a meeting?

My constituent has suffered the anguish of his daughter going missing every single day for 31 years. That anguish is deeper with the knowledge that the investigation was botched from the start, that the incompetence continued for many years and that we are no further forward in finding out what happened to little Katrice. Thirty-one years is far too long. The Minister needs to pledge firm action to reassure Mr Lee tonight.