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Missing Persons

Volume 474: debated on Monday 31 March 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many persons registered as missing in Northern Ireland have been missing for (a) less than one year and (b) more than five years; and what percentage these figures represent of the total number of persons missing. (194749)

Missing persons are dealt with at district level. The information requested could not be provided without conducting a full examination of the records of each district, which could be carried out only at disproportionate cost.

However, an exercise conducted for the Northern Ireland Policing Board in November 2007 calculated the number of missing persons reported in each year since 2002 as follows:

Number

20071

581

2006

642

2005

689

2004

684

2003

668

2002

437

1 Up until November 2007.

There were 68 persons registered as missing in Northern Ireland as of early November 2007. Only a very small number of persons reported missing are not subsequently located.