‘It’s a very lonely world’: The Brits who go missing abroad
“His room is still the same” and “there’s always a missing chair around the table”, says Pip, whose younger brother Sanjiv Kundi was 41 when he vanished in Paris 11 years ago.
She has visited the French capital many times since he left the family home in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, for a week’s holiday – always wondering if she will see his face in the crowd.
Sanjiv was the “apple of my parents’ eye”, she says, their only son surrounded by four sisters, but he struggled with his mental health in the years before his disappearance.
Distinctive looking, standing at around 6ft 2inch inches tall with dark, greying curly hair and a beard, Sanjiv was wearing glasses, a heavy brown, three-quarter length coat and brown cargo trousers when he took the 4.22pm Eurostar from St Pancras.
He arrived at Gare du Nord station on the evening of 25 September 2013 but what happened next remains a mystery.
Sanjiv Kundi has been missing for 11 years. Pic: Family
He is believed to have returned to the station the following day to buy a ticket home for 1 October but there’s no available CCTV footage, and his cards and mobile phone have not been used since he went missing.
The impact on Sanjiv’s family has been devastating, his parents now in their 80s, his nephews all grown up, are still no closer to getting any answers.
Pip wonders if he’s been a victim of crime, if something sinister has happened to him, or if he’s decided to live that way.
‘Somebody somewhere knows something’
If he has, she wants him to know he’s “deeply missed” and his family just want to know he’s safe – but she does not think he intentionally wanted to go missing.
“In this day and age, with all the technology we have, I can’t understand why nobody saw my brother that day,” says Pip.
“Somebody somewhere knows something.”
Her family is one of the many living with the nightmare of searching for a loved one who has gone missing abroad.
Flowers left by Jay Slater’s family. Pic: Reuters/Jesus Cabrera
The LBT Global charity, which helped Jay Slater’s relatives after he disappeared while on holiday in Tenerife, says it gets about 3,000 enquiries a year and takes on about 300 to 400 of those cases.
But only a fraction get the same type of publicity as the 19-year-old, whose body was found in a ravine 29 days after he went missing, or television doctor Michael Mosley, 67, who was found dead four days after he disappeared on the Greek island of Symi.
Middle-aged men and those with mental health issues tend not to generate the same headlines as the young, photogenic or famous, says Matt Searle, LBT Global’s chief executive.
But the “extraordinary” case of Madeleine McCann, who was aged three when she disappeared from her holiday apartment in Portugal on 3 May 2007, set a “very public benchmark” for what people expect.
‘A missing foreigner is bottom of the pile’
Police in the UK have a duty to take statements and pass the information through Interpol to the relevant foreign police force, but they do not have any jurisdiction to carry out an investigation.
There are currently 69 Interpol yellow notices – the global police alerts issued to help locate people, including cases of suspected kidnappings and abductions – for British people, including Madeleine.
Gerry, left, and Kate McCann, with a picture of their missing daughter Madeleine. Pic: AP
Most families will not get much support from the authorities and in some countries, “a missing foreigner is absolutely bottom of the pile”, says Matt, while those who go out to search themselves may not even be able to read the road signs.
“It’s a very lonely world for people who’ve got someone missing overseas,” he says.
“A huge part of every operation is explaining why the British police, the prime minister, the foreign secretary, aren’t all flying out there,” he says.
“It just doesn’t happen. You have to explain that the British government can’t do that. The Met Police aren’t going to be flying out in helicopters, going to look for them, you know, we’re not going to get any of that.
“But what we do is say, depending on what the case needs, we could try and find a local guy with a drone, mobilise local search and rescue, or fundraise to get on-the-ground support.”
‘We’ve been to the morgues’
Pip’s family has had virtually no contact with the French police and a year after Sanjiv went missing his file was shoved in a drawer, she says, so they were left to drive the search themselves.
She went to areas in Paris that were popular with rough sleepers, handed out leaflets and posters and appeared on French radio and TV.
Ben Needham went missing on Greek island Kos. Pic: PA
“We’ve been to the morgues. We’ve been to the hospital,” she says. “And you can’t believe you still can’t find a scrap of anything to tell us what happened when he left that station.”
Pip has been assisted by the Missing People charity. It says 170,000 people a year, or one every 90 seconds, are reported missing in the UK, but lists the details of just 38 people missing abroad.
They include the high-profile cases of Madeleine McCann and Ben Needham, who was 21 months old when he disappeared on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.
While Sanjiv has attracted some publicity over the years, the coverage of the famous cases sometimes makes Pip think: “Why not my brother?”
Around 80% of cases resolved
LBT Global, which specialises in helping families whose relatives are missing abroad, has around 860 open cases, some going back 20 years.
The charity is able to tell around 80% of the people it works with what happened. Around half of those are happy endings, says Matt.
Alex Batty was reunited with his grandmother after six years. Pic: GMP
Alex Batty went missing aged 11 in 2017 after his mother Melanie Batty, who was not his legal guardian, took him on a pre-arranged trip to Spain with his grandfather.
They lived “off-grid” leading a nomadic lifestyle in southern France for six years until Alex made the decision to walk out and was found walking in darkness carrying his skateboard by a French delivery driver near Toulouse.
He was reunited with his grandmother and legal guardian Susan Caruana at his former home in Oldham, Greater Manchester, just before Christmas last year.
In other cases, a missing person is found in prison overseas or dead.
“Even being able to tell them that someone has died can be a relief for them, because at least they can move on with a grieving journey then, and we can make arrangements to repatriate the body, and they can have a burial,” says Matt.
“And it’s surprising how often a family will say, ‘I wish I knew they were dead rather than just not knowing at all’.”
Harder still, he says, is telling a family they are alive and well but they do not want to speak to them ever again. The reasons for this can vary but typically include a family breakdown, criminal activity within a family or they just want to leave their old life behind.
‘Never lose hope’
In those cases, Matt has to tell the family: “I’m sorry, but we can’t search for them anymore. They told me they don’t want to be found and they don’t want to be in touch.”
But living in long-term limbo like Pip’s family is also incredibly hard.
They have gone through all the stages of bereavement, from shock to denial, to depression and anger at “why isn’t anybody looking for him?”
And when a new high-profile missing person’s case like Jay Slater hits the headlines it “brings it all back”.
“Every person out there whose family member is missing could almost feel and touch the emotion that [family] was going through,” says Pip.
LBT Global’s oldest cases date back to 2004 or 2005 but Matt says his charity has located people who have been missing for more than 20 years.
“The message to families is never lose hope,” he says.
Missing People runs a free and confidential helpline for those affected by a disappearance. You can text or call them on 116 000 or send an email to 11600@missingpeople.org.uk.
The UK economy showed strong growth in the first three months of the year, according to official figures.
Gross domestic product (GDP) – the standard measure of an economy’s value – grew 0.7% in the first quarter of 2025, the Office for National Statistics said.
The rise is better than expected. An increase of just 0.6% was anticipated by economists polled by the Reuters news agency.
Money blog: Reaction as UK economy grows more than expected
It’s significantly better than the three months previous, in which a slight economic expansion of just 0.1% was reported for the final quarter of 2024.
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The ONS also said there was a small amount of growth last month, as GDP expanded 0.2% in March, which similarly beat expectations.
No growth at all had been forecast for the month.
How did the economy grow?
A large contribution to high GDP growth was an increase in output in the production sector, which rose 1.1%, driven by manufacturing and a 4% increase in water supply, the ONS said.
Also working to push up the GDP figure was 0.7% growth in the biggest part of the UK economy – the services industry.
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‘Here’s the concern with GDP figures’
Wholesale, retail and computer programming services all performed well in the quarter, as did car leasing and advertising, the ONS said.
It shows the economy was resilient, as the country headed into the global trade war sparked by President Trump’s so-called ‘liberation day’ tariff announcement on 2 April.
Welcome political news, for now
The data is welcome news for a government who have identified growing the economy as its number one priority.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is taking the figures as a political win, saying the UK economy has grown faster than the US, Canada, France, Italy and Germany.
“Today’s growth figures show the strength and potential of the UK economy, ” she said.
“Up against a backdrop of global uncertainty, we are making the right choices now in the national interest.”
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Such GDP numbers may not continue into April as businesses and consumers were hit with a raft of bill rises, and Mr Trump’s tariffs fired the starting gun on a global trade war.
Last month, water, energy and council tax bills rose across the country while employers faced higher wage costs from the rise in their national insurance contributions and the minimum wage.
But above-inflation wage growth and fading consumer caution could continue to boost the economy.
UK
Assisted dying law ‘unworkable, unaffordable and naive’ says partnership of UK’s leading social care groups
A partnership of the country’s leading social care and end of life organisations has told Sky News of their deep frustration at being excluded from important discussions around the assisted dying debate – describing the proposed change to the law as “unworkable, unaffordable and naive”.
The Coalition of Frontline Care for People Nearing the End of Life is worried about the impact of introducing assisted dying will have on their three million-strong workforce, which they say is on the frontline for delivering care to terminally ill adults.
The partnership includes The Gold Standards Framework Charity (GSF), National Care Forum (NCF), British Geriatric Society (BGS), Care England (CE) and the Community Hospital Association.
It submitted evidence at the committee stage of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, but was not called to give evidence
Professor Martin Vernon, consultant geriatrician and spokesperson for ethics and law at the British Geriatric Society, told Sky News: “This is a huge problem for us.
“The majority of people this law will impact on are going to be older people with complex needs, and there has been virtually no engagement in the consultation process around this proposed legislation.”
Professor Martin Vernon says the majority affected by the bill will be older with complex needs
Professor Vernon and his coalition colleagues are especially concerned about sick and vulnerable adults being pressured into making choices.
“We then may see, increasingly, older people with life-limiting diagnoses like dementia, like frailty, feeling the need to opt for assisted dying or indeed feeling coerced either by their circumstances or societally,” he added.
“This may place a heavy burden on some individuals to choose assisted dying when, actually, the creation of better alternatives – supportive care, and palliative care to enable them to have a dignified and comfortable last few years of life should be the way to go.”
Caroline Southgate, founder and managing director of home care company Doris Jones, told Sky News there was simply not enough information about the impact assisted dying would have on her staff.
‘The way that the bill is presented doesn’t give us enough information,’ Caroline Southgate says
“I think we are concerned that we don’t have enough clarity about how we would train staff, how we support people if they make that decision,” she said.
“At the moment, the way that the bill is presented doesn’t give us enough information to know how we would deal with those issues.
“If someone chooses this route, all I need to know is what’s my role, where are my boundaries?”
Mrs Southgate is also worried about her staff being accused of coercion. Because of the nature of their work, home carers build up a strong bond with the people they tend to, often seeing them multiple times a day.
And sometimes, they might be the only contact their service users have.
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“I think we’ve got lots and lots of experience of being in homes with people, dealing with families, who trust us to look after the person who needs care and support at home,” she added.
“I need to know that we would be insured and protected should a family decide that one of our staff was accused of coercing someone, or the other way around, talking someone out of a situation.
“We really need a lot more information to make that safe for us and to make sure that our staff are really well supported.”
Katy Betz works for Mrs Southgate. She is a trained nurse originally from Germany but has lived and worked as a carer in England for over twenty years.
Kate loves what she does, but echoes the same concerns expressed by her employer: Assisted dying could change the relationship she has with her service users.
Driving along Southend’s seafront, she explains there is little else she and her care colleagues talk about these days.
Katy Betz tells Sky News the debate on assisted dying is all she and her colleagues talk about
“It is important”, she says. “Even within my friendship group, everyone has got a different opinion, a strong opinion actually.
Katy says she needs more detail: “More training, safeguarding – what do we do? Where do we go? Who needs to be informed about the client’s decision?
“You are there to make their life, and their end of life, bearable and as good as possible. I can’t explain how I deal with it, but I think you just have to be born to deal with it.”
Katy is on her way to see John and Brenda Barber for one of their daily visits. Brenda is 85 and John is 90.
John took Brenda on their date to a jive dance in Southend.
He was twenty years old and had just returned from army service in Gibraltar. Brenda was just sixteen.
They have been inseparable ever since.
John’s arthritis makes every day tasks almost impossible, and he says if he did not have a carer like Katy, his life would be intolerable.
Paul Barber said his life would be intolerable without Katy Betz
He says: “It’s becoming increasingly difficult with different parts of my body. My wife and I are together and that’s what we want. We would never want to be separated.”
There’s a pause while he reflects on that thought. “That’s despite the bickering,” he says before breaking into a mischievous laugh.
The bond that is shared between Katy, John and Brenda is clear to see. They are worried that this might change irreversibly if the assisted dying law is passed.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill returns to the House of Commons on Friday, where it will face greater scrutiny.
Earlier this week, two Royal Colleges, Physicians and Psychiatrists, withdrew support for the bill, saying it was “not fit for purpose”.
But campaigners in favour of assisted dying have told Sky News the bill includes more protections and safeguards for all dying people than any other jurisdiction where the choice is legal.
Sarah Wootton, chief executive for Dignity in Dying, said: “MPs voted by a clear majority to progress Kim Leadbeater’s Bill in November because they recognised that the blanket ban on assisted dying is failing dying people and their families.
“Every year, dying people are forced to endure unbearable pain, despite good care, travel overseas to die alone, or take matters into their own hands, often dying violent and lonely deaths without support.
“This Bill – already hailed as the strongest in the world – has been strengthened even further during committee stage, with amendments accepted to involve a range of skilled professionals in every application, specific training requirements around coercion, and that assisted dying can only be discussed within the context of all end of life options.”
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