Owen Harding: The teen exactly who disappeared during lockdown

By Callum MayBBC Reports

As Britain scrambled adjust fully to initial month of a life of lockdown in later part of the March, Owen Harding along with his mum Stella happened to be arguing.

The 16-year-old got frustrated that his sweetheart Meg Wells Rhodes had been 280 miles out in York, in which she lives. It absolutely was a difficult couple of days. Meg have only just kept after a quick stop by at Owen’s homes in Saltdean, East Sussex. Limitations on trips was in fact imposed plus it ended up being extremely unlikely the couple would be able to reconcile soon.

The young adults don’t see hitwe App each other regularly as a result of the point, but Owen discovered new doubt unsettling.

“i understand that I myself got really anxious,” states his mum Stella. “and that I know lots of my buddies had been extremely nervous as well, and experience countless sadness about being unable to spend some time together.”

Owen lives with his mum and five-year-old aunt when you look at the ways deco-era village of Saltdean ready on top of the cliffs about eastern edge of Brighton.

Stella represent herself as “typical Brighton” – a diving and diving instructor exactly who traveled globally with a backpack and came across Owen’s daddy on an Indian seashore. The guy died in the home in Geneva couple of years ago after an abrupt diseases.

On a video clip phone call from teen’s bedroom, Stella describes the girl boy as “an articulate and smart and mature, emotionally smart son”. Going lost is regarding figure.

Owen’s GCSE artwork outlines the bed room wall space, combined with images of family. There are baseball trophies from their three-year job with Woodingdean Wanderers.

Owen and Meg’s family members turned pals through Britain’s strong society of parents who elect to house school kids. Meg try coached home, and Owen got earlier went to Brighton Waldorf School, among Steiner School system of services of alternate studies, prior to starting ways and movies studies A-levels at a sixth kind college.

The two had recognized one another given that they comprise 11 but got merely be a few 2 yrs back.

Owen planned to spend lockdown with Meg, along with joked together and his awesome friends that he might make the journey north. But their mum was adament that had not been gonna happen.

“it absolutely was like this continuous conversation all times. That was really, truly challenging between united states,” she states.

On Thursday 26 March, the argument flared once more, and also as the evening sunshine lit up the southern area lows, Owen remaining our home without saying a term to his mummy. CCTV photographs reveal the teenager taking walks south, down Bannings Vale in Saltdean, towards the cliff very top at 18:13.

The exact distance towards high cliffs is less than half a distance. The east edge of Saltdean sits close to Telscombe Tye, a scrubby expanse of yard favored by walkers that represents the meeting of Brighton’s eastern suburbs plus the South lows. There are only a few hundred gardens of grass beyond the coastline path before the Tye prevents during the Sussex chalk.

The guy generated a call to Meg after the guy kept the home. “the guy asserted that he would just have a huge discussion together with mum,” she states. “And I ended up being troubled at the same time because I had merely got a quarrel with my mum comparable thing. After which we just sort of cheered up-and and he stated he had been only gonna watch the sunset.”

It absolutely was the final time any person has actually reported having talked to Owen.

Cell site reports reveal that Owen’s phone is connected to the mast towards the top of Longridge method, which works from the downland behind Saltdean for the coast path plus the cliff leading. At 18:23 it absolutely was disconnected.

Meg made another telephone call to the woman date at 18:32, but it went directly to voicemail. Unacquainted with this, Stella was not involved. “We living of the sea, we reside adjacent to the lows. We going for walks lots. The guy only went out, off he moved and I also just thought: ‘better, close, go to get your allocated daily workout.

“‘Go and stomp it off, run and obtain it off your chest and after that you’ll keep returning.'” But by belated nights she got be concerned. She called company in Saltdean and Meg’s household in York. Around 23:00 she contacted law enforcement.

Meg and her mothers hurried back into the south coastline the very next day additionally the families started looking around on lows behind Saltdean, and across the coastline so far as Newhaven. They also known as around at deserted farmhouses, screaming Owen’s term.

A large police operation had been rapidly organised. About 80 officers seen properties and enterprises nearby the Hardings’ cottage. Nevertheless the lockdown made the procedure tougher. Authorities were occasionally frustrated by visitors not answering doors, and stores which may have already been able to incorporate CCTV photos have sealed due to the lockdown.

But police performed bring people just who possessed security cameras authorities memory sticks. These people were kept in packages outside residences and later accumulated by officers.