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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Hello Charlie,
I have just finished reading MISSING.
As a Croydonian now living in Milton Keynes & spent 13 years as a part time youth worker at Bletchley Youth Centre, ( now retired) I can not thank you enough for all the hard work you have done. I often wondered if there was someone taking missing young people seriously.
I would also have loved to have seen a Junior & Senior club in every area, with at least a couple of police people who enjoy working with children, on site. If you want to know what us really going on in your area, don’t ask the politicians, ask the young people.
Thank you once again & take care.
Jenny Cross.
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Hello Jenny
How nice of you to take the time to write this and for your thanks. It has been hard work but worth it because it is something I believe in and was in need of improvement. We see too many young lives blighted by the situations that they find themselves in We should also thank you and others like you who have worked with young people to try to make their lives better.
Charlie
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hello Charlie. I would like to contact you, and get your advice. It seems our lives have been lived in a parrellel universe. I too have been, first rescuing and then searching for missing people for nearly 50 years. I am not a police officer, but have worked very closely with my local force for nearly 50 years. Many of our experiences are nearly identical, and we have drawn the same conclusions. I am about to commence a strategic review as part of a small team looking the Missing Person Portfolio at my local force.
much to discuss.
Duncan Massey.
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Hello Duncan
Thanks for getting in touch and do let me know how I might be able to help.
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hello again. I hope this will be read by Mr Hedges (or someone close).
in 1977, I responded (as a kid of just 17 years old) to a request by Lord Bath (owner Longleat and Cheddar Gorge) for local climbers to set up a rock rescue service if climbing was to be allowed to continue on his cliffs. I am a founder member of Cheddar Cliff Rescue. A simular need existed in Avon Gorge (Clifton suspension bridge) – so the service was extended to Bristol. (Many many suicides) At about that time, the Avon and Somerset police was being formed, and they had little or no search capacity for missing people. The cliff rescue team was co-opted and role extended to become a SAR team. In 1990 we became a MR afiliated search and rescue team across A&S. In 2006 the police requested we extended our role again to include ‘water rescue’. In 2007 of course there were the great Gloucestershire floods.
The community SAR capabilities far pre-date the police response.
Through our this time (nearly five decades???) I have been either Chair, or incident controller for the SAR group. I have over 3 000 responses to SAR incidents (cliffs, land search, water search and corresponding rescue/recovery duties). I am therefore well placed to consider myself a ‘competent specialist’ ( even if unpaid!).
During this same time frame, I have given my time and expertise to the local Ambulance service as, what is now referred to as a Community First Responder, and have attended many thousand 999 calls to people in medical distress. (I an NOT a Paramedic,). The two skills complement each other, and I was a police/medical co-responder, capable and willing to be called out to 999 incidents by either control room.
I have recently retired from active SAR service, but have remained in close contact with many friends and colleagues in the police.
I have noticed how quickly systems regress, and new officers and managers take a view that ‘process’ is more important than ‘outcome’.
my own police force (A&S), are currently facing an investigation into their failure to find a missing lad about 3 months ago, in the Bristol Dock area. A new ACC is inviting me back in as a specialist Strategic Missing Person Advisor, on some kind of Task and Finish group, to review the Force missing person portfolio.
my fear and recent experience, is that police forces in general may be regressing from concerning them selves with “out comes’, but relying more heavily on ‘process’. Common sense seems to he disappearing!! Social media now seems to be the new ‘big thing’.
Having read your book ‘Missing’, I can identify with many of your feelings, and share many of your exact experiences in the field (down to having found someone living with dementia, alive, after spending 3 nights wrapped in brambles).
I recognise and applaud all the work you have done, and your achievements during your distinguished career; but I wonder and fear, that with new, younger cohort of senior police officers, taking over command, all the lessons of old, risk being forgotten or overlooked.
I think there is a role for us ‘old timers’ to pass on our wealth of experience, and to keep the processes and developments, that you have striven so hard to create, alive and at the forefront, of modern day policing.
I am sure that in another life, we must be twins! Our collective experience and outcomes are so simular. I would appreciate your thoughts on my ramblings, as we both still have much to offer at a strategic/policy level.
I feel that Integrity is non- negotiable (despite the recent actions of a certain CC), and assure you I am not a crank, or conspiracy theorist – I can validate all my claims and supply refences including the wonderful Sir Andrew Marsh QPM !!
thanks for your time, I hope we can work on keeping things fresh and relevant for a new cohort of officers.
Kind Regards,
Duncan Massey.
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