It’s a friendship born out of the most terrible experience, the stuff of our worst nightmares, yet two Yorkshire women are supporting each other as they both face milestone anniversaries of the terrible tragedies they have lived through.
As a journalist and now friend of both women, I’ve watched how Joan Lawrence and Claire Throssell have been leaning on each other for support and have developed an extraordinary bond as they cope with the most unimaginable pain any parent can endure.
Joan, from Malton, faces the fifteenth year since her 35 year old daughter Claudia, was last seen on 18th March 2019 leaving her shift as a chef at York University on a sunny Spring afternoon. Despite speaking to both her parents by telephone that night, there’s been no sighting of her since and her disappearance is being treated as a murder inquiry by North Yorkshire Police.
Claudia Lawrence
This October Claire, from Penistone in South Yorkshire, will mark the tenth year since her two sons Jack and Paul aged 12 and 9, were murdered by her estranged husband Darren Sykes during a custody visit. Sykes deliberately lured the boys into his attic on pretence of showing them a train set, then set it on fire, killing himself at the same time.
Claire with her two sons Jack and Paul
As a presenter of ITV Calendar in Yorkshire for over 20 years, I’ve interviewed both women many times. I’ve also witnessed their unique friendship grow and now I am privileged to count myself among their support circle, meeting both regularly for coffee and having the honour of starting Claire’s annual fun run every year in memory of her two boys.
I’ve also faithfully covered both their ongoing campaigns, in Joan’s case to find answers about what happened to Claudia and in Claire’s to change the law to prevent other children suffering the same fate as her two sons.
I’m always, when we meet up, humbled by their strength, courage and resilience as well as their dedicated focus on their goals and, during a recent catch up, I wanted to find out more about why these two very different women from different backgrounds had forged this special bond and how it was helping them both through the pain and sadness of their everyday lives, as well as the prospect of another anniversary.
We caught up last week at a hotel near Penistone and the pair frequently held hands as Joan told me: “I met Claire about seven or eight months down the line (for Claire). We just sort of bonded as two mums in situations that were unimaginable, and she’s been there since. It’s a shoulder. I do find that in my situation there’s very little out there for people in limbo. There is so much help for people who are bereaved, so many charities, but there’s no one to talk to, so we’ve managed to help each other.”
Joan and Claire
Claire added:”When I first met Joan it was very early days for me…I couldn’t even imagine another day, yet here was this lady seven years later, still fighting for her daughter, still standing. I took inspiration from Joan and the first thing I saw was this lovely smile, an eloquent, elegant lady who brought me flowers and said I know how you feel. It’s a unique situation, you can never explain that pain, that empty shell, that you are when you lose a child. Joan knows what it’s like to live without her daughter for 15 years, hopefully it won’t be the case always, but she understands how it is to not see your child every day.”
In the years since Claudia Lawrence’s disappearance a number of arrests have been made by police, but no charges were brought. Joan’s mission is to keep her daughter’s name in the public eye in the hope that one day someone will come forward with vital information. She recently faced what would have been Claudia’s 50th birthday with no answers.
Claire is now involved in the Child First Campaign and Woman’s Aid, fighting to put children first and foremost in family court decisions. She wants to change part of the Courts work so that children have more of a say if they are believed to be at risk in custody arrangements and for family courts to be more vigorous in establishing whether a child may be at risk from a parent or guardian. Claire is currently fighting to get a petition to 100,000 signatures so the issue can be debated again in parliament.
Click https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/child-first-safe-child-contact-saves-lives to sign the petition
She told me: “What we want is a change in Practice Direction 12 J which says it’s in the best interest of a child to have contact with both parents and it’s what Social Services, judges and Cafcass (The Children and Family Advisory and Support Service) which advises family courts, all work to.
“There’s a huge cry about parental rights but a deafening silence about children’s rights. No child should have to say to a fireman or a policeman “my dad did this and he did it on purpose” as Jack did. No child’s last words should be taken as a testimony from a police officer.
“If Practice Direction 12J changes then we can make family courts the safest, fairest places in the world, but if that piece of legislation stays the outcome for children is going to be the same.
“When I went through the family courts it was a barbaric, humiliating experience. I was invisible, Jack was invisible, Paul was invisible, and the only time Jack’s voice was heard was on that landing ten years ago this year when he bravely told the firemen and a police officer that his Dad had hurt him. I need to keep his voice out there….If I can’t build a legacy for them, make changes for them, then why am I still here ten years later.”
Joan and Claire are supporting each other as they both continue their fights in the name of their children and approach the upcoming anniversaries. Claire told me how Joan often sends Claire hand drawn cards with messages of support.
She said: “She doesn’t know how much they mean to me.. on a bad day I open them up and I read them because this is one incredible brave lady who is sitting here. When I had no hope she showed me what hope really is.
”Joan holds onto the hope that Claudia will be found and I hold onto the hope that this campaign will change other children’s lives so Mums don’t have to exist like we do…
“I do despair sometimes that the law I’m fighting for always seems to have barriers in front of it, but then I meet up with this lovely lady who is still going, still believing and I know that I have to believe too for Jack and Paul, especially in this tenth year so that other mums and dads never have to live like we do without our children.”
Added Joan: “We’ve shared something that is really unimaginable. We’re both still going through a huge trauma. Our lives, when this happened, our lives stopped and just completely changed. It’s difficult to describe and we are still going through it.
But this is one of the good things that has come out of all this, for both of us.”
Me with Joan and Claire
End:
To sign Claire Throssell’s Child First petition go to https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/child-first-safe-child-contact-saves-lives
If you have any information about Claudia Lawrence’s disappearance please contact North Yorkshire Police via their website, quoting Claudia Lawrence. Or alternatively via Crimestoppers http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org.