When Peter Boxell looks at his grandson Alex, he sees the uncanny likeness of his 15-year-old son Lee, who went missing 36 years ago.
“Alex reminds me so much of our Lee,” says Peter, about the 17-year-old who is now two years older than his uncle was when he disappeared. “The things he does and says… I forget and sometimes call him Lee.”
For nearly four decades Peter, 78, and his wife Christine, 84, have been waiting for their son to return from a Saturday afternoon trip to Sutton High Street in South London.
They refuse to move from their terraced house in a quiet little neighbourhood close nearby in case he ever comes home.
Speaking from their home, festooned with jolly festive decorations, glowing fairy lights, wrapped presents and Christmas cards, Peter says: “We’ve had to stay here in case Lee ever came home. I couldn’t bear to think of him coming knocking on the door and nobody’s here.”
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For many years, the Boxells kept Lee’s bedroom exactly as he left it on September 10, 1988 – with his Sam Fox calendar pinned to the wall, along with Wimbledon and Charlton football pull-outs and posters of 80s pop stars Mel and Kim and a big-haired Kylie.
“It’s 36 years ago, but that day is still so vivid,” sighs Christine.
“The day he went missing was a beautiful sunny Saturday,” recalls Peter. “It was late when Lee got up and he was still in his pyjamas when he came downstairs. I asked him what he was up to that day, and he just mumbled something, you know, like boys do when they’ve just got up.”
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Lee Boxell’s bedroom was left untouched for many years (
Image:
COPYRIGHT, 2011)
Missing persons poster for Lee Boxell in 1988 (
Image:
The People)
The family all had different plans for the day. Peter went out shopping, Christine went to look after her sick mum, and Lindsey went for a sleepover with a friend.
Lee had a tenner on him – earned from his paper round – and was planning on going to watch a match in Crystal Palace with his friend Russell.
Sitting in the armchair where he last saw his son. Peter adds: “That was the last I saw of him, sitting here… in his pyjamas. Half asleep.”
When Lee didn’t come home that evening, Peter wasn’t immediately worried. “At his age I’d have been down the pub,” he jokes.
“But Lee wasn’t like that – he was shy,” interrupts Christine. “He was a trustworthy and good lad, who always called me from a phone box if he was out. It was completely out of character for him not to come home.”
Lee with father Peter, mum Christine and sister Lindsey (
Image:
Boxell Family Handout)
“We rang around all the hospitals that night to see if he’d had an accident, and then called the police next morning on Sunday,” Peter says.
A missing persons hunt was launched as police were immediately concerned for Lee’s safety. They discovered that Lee had been planning to go to a football match with his friend Russell Clark, who then changed his mind and decided not to go.
Back then there was no CCTV and the police investigation had to rely on public sightings, which were not always reliable.
And the Boxells fear that the police investigation paid too much attention to a sighting of Lee heading into town in Sutton, rather than one which had him walking home. “The police latched on to that unfortunately, and decided Lee had been heading off to a football match. But there were sightings of Lee coming the other way – towards home.
“We know Lee wouldn’t go anywhere on his own. He wasn’t street savvy – he wouldn’t have known where to go.”
For Peter, there was one particular sighting which remains heartbreaking. “A man came here looking for me,” he explains. “I was outside washing the car when he came up and said how he lived in Perivale and he was convinced he’d seen Lee serving at a market stall in Greenford.”
While Peter doubted the sighting was Lee, he decided to take a look. “As I approached the stall, I got closer and closer. I thought, ‘My God. It does look like Lee’” he says. ”He looked so much like him, I had to actually go up close to check it wasn’t him.
“I could see his ear lobes were different. And even then, I had to talk to this boy to hear his voice.”
And even though the lad wasn’t Lee, Peter contemplated leaving with him – to fill the yearning gap left by his son’s disappearance. “I know it sounds weird, but the thought went through my mind that I could bring this boy home,” he says.
Earlier this year, the film The Rewakening – a fictional story about a mother who brings a girl who looks like her missing daughter into their family – was based on Peter’s achingly sad story.
It took 18 years for the police investigation to unearth another lead.
Turning the pages of four big scrapbooks, filled with yellowing newspaper clippings from the 1980s and a list of all the times Lee’s appeal appeared on TV on Crime Watch or on the radio, Peter says: “The Missing People charity didn’t exist when Lee went missing.
“We had nobody helping us. And we didn’t know what to do.
“We used to close the door on the press, but then missing estate agent Suzy Lamplugh’s mum Diana taught us how important it was to get our appeal in the press and on TV.”
“She contacted us and came here to advise us what to do. Diana brought Mary Asprey and Janet Newman around and they helped us with the missing campaign to find Lee.”
Sisters Mary and Janet created the Missing People charity in 1993 in the wake of Suzy Lamplugh’s disappearance.
Forever grateful for their support, Peter continues: “They have been with us every step of the way. There is no one else out there who can help when someone goes missing.”
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Peter Boxell on being an original Missing People choir member
Throwing herself into campaigning for Missing People, the couple’s scrapbooks have pictures of Christine with T’Pau’s Carol Decker and Wimbledon footballer John Fashanu, while they were interviewed by everyone from South East News to Gloria Hunniford.
There are even framed pictures on the wall of Peter and daughter Lindsey meeting Princess Diana.
But Christine admits: “I was so focused on finding Lee – I forgot I had a daughter.”
While the family tried to regroup and assemble a normal life, Missing People remained a central part of it.
Peter was invited to sing at one of charity’s annual remembrance events, and in doing so, became one of the founder members of its famous choir. He also appeared along with Peter Lawrence – whose missing daughter Claudia has also never been found – on Britain’s Got Talent in 2017.
“ I’d never sung before then,” recalls Peter. “I could hear my voice echoing round the church walls. I felt so good doing this because I felt that I was singing to Lee. If he had passed on for some reason, he would hear me.”
Lee and his sister Lindsey when they were little (
Image:
Boxell Family Handout)
It also proved to be an important distraction when the police got a grim lead in 2013. A local graveyard digger, William Lambert, who was in prison for sexual offences, was overheard saying he’d murdered Lee and buried him in the graveyard.
“It was then the Met started excavating under St Dunstan’s Church graveyard where this unofficial youth club, the ‘Shed’ was supposed to be,” says Peter.
It was thought that Lee had gone there and seen something he shouldn’t have.
“Police were convinced they would find Lee’s remains and arrested Lambert and three others,” he adds.
Christine interjects: “We felt torn – on the one hand, we wanted to find Lee, on the other hand, we didn’t want something horrible to have happened to him. But the huge archaeological dig never found anything.”
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Before hopping into a waiting car and being whisked home, Zoe – who will present her last show on Friday – made sure to give her Radio 2 family a big hug.
“What she didn’t realise is that we already have a shining star on the red carpet, someone who’s been there for 70 years. She’s called the Queen,” the author told The Daily Mail.