International Women's Day: Joan Lawrence and Claire Throssell share joy of friendship after agony of losing children

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.

Later this month, Joan, from Malton, faces the 15th year since her 35-year-old daughter Claudia, was last seen on March 18 2019, after leaving her shift as a chef at York University on a sunny 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.

In October Claire, from Penistone, near Barnsley, will mark the 10th year since her two sons Jack and Paul aged 12 and nine, were murdered by her estranged husband Darren Sykes during a custody visit. Sykes had deliberately lured the boys into his attic on pretence of showing them a train set, then set the house on fire, killing himself at the same time.

Last week the pair spoke of their friendship as Joan said: “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.”

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 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, and is fighting to get a petition to 100,000 signatures so the issue can be debated again in parliament.

She said: “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.

”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.”