Charlie Hedges MBE is acknowledged as one of the UK’s foremost experts on missing persons, particularly children and those who are abducted and trafficked. During a career spanning 36-years with the Police and more lately with some of the UK’s leading public bodies in this field, he has amassed a wealth of practical and theoretical experience, nationally and internationally, and is now sought-after as a freelance advisor and media commentator.
He is the author of two books: ‘Missing you already….a guide to the investigation of missing persons’ and ‘A Police Officer’s Guide to the Investigation of Missing Persons’. He has also been responsible for writing national policy for the UK Police on missing persons and search procedures.
Charlie spent over 30 years as a police officer in the UK in a variety of different roles, gaining expertise in investigation, command & control and operations planning, then taking a specific interest in missing persons from 1997. In 2008, he joined the UK Missing Persons Bureau as the Liaison and Support Officer, in parallel continuing his involvement in national policy development, support to UK Police forces at a strategic and tactical level and working at a senior level with other statutory and voluntary agencies involved in missing person issues.
In 2012, he took up a new post at CEOP – the UK’s renowned Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre – as the Manager for Missing and Abducted Children. His portfolio spanned a broad range of issues related to trafficking, child abuse and child alerts. He has been involved in some of the most high-profile cases of recent years.
Charlie has amassed extensive international experience, working across Europe in relation to the development of child alerts and supporting other countries as an expert advisor. He has also delivered training to Police and other specialists in countries throughout the world.
In addition to significant experience working with law enforcement organisations, he has also worked and liaised with government departments, non-governmental organisations, universities and a wide range of other organisations based in the UK and overseas.
Charlie Hedges Advisory 
I have just watched you in Sky. I do not agree with a lot of what you said.
Obviously the bench was a possible crime scene and should have been treated as such on the disappearance day not one week later.
There is no evidence she fell in the river. The Police did do basic police practice which I learnt at Hendon in 1962.
Hello David, I am sorry that you did not agree with my comments. That she went in the water is a reasonable working hypothesis and justifies the amount of search activity deployed. It is not possible to find evidence of a fall into water, depending on the nature of the water’s edge. As I said, it is important to keep and open mind to other scenarios and continue to look for information that might support those. Neither of us are privy to the full details of the investigation and we hope that they are keeping an open mind to other possibilities,
which is indicated by comments made by Supt. Riley.
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Thank you for the work you do with finding missing children. If I can be a resource I would like to help.
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Hello Elizabeth. Thank you for your comment and sorry for not replying before this. I am not sure what I can offer you but wondered if you had any ideas about how you might like to be involved?
Thank you
Charlie
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