Search for Missing Journalist continues...

The Story of Gillian Gold...

When a 25-year-old Derbyshire journalist vanished only a few miles from her home in 2012 there followed the usual police involvement; then came the search teams and a press conference with a cast-iron guarantee that everything possible was being done, but it all inevitably came to an end. A month or two after Gillian Gold disappeared most of us had forgotten she even existed. Such is the tragedy of The Missing.

Naturally, concerns were raised at the time that Gillian had been the victim of foul play. And for two weeks authorities scouring woods, playing fields and rivers half-expected to find her scattered belongings - the camera she was carrying, her trench coat - and the dreaded pale-yellow half-moon of newly buried flesh. But there was nothing. She had vanished without a trace.

In private, police didn’t rule out the possibility that she was dead but they knew that if she was someone somewhere would eventually find her (of an early-morning dog walker’s rotten luck they could always rely). Until then, they drew a quiet veil over the search and added her file among the effs and aitches of other missing persons for who hope had lately dwindled.

Yet among those who knew Gillian, or knew of her, her disappearance didn’t make sense. It both niggled and intrigued, for she was an investigative journalist with a passion for digging for facts and on occasion she found treasure. She along with journalists Heather Brooke and Jon Ungoed-Thomas were the first to have exposed the controversial "John Lewis List": the catalyst for the 2009 MPs’ expenses scandal. Was she onto something more this time?

After graduating from Loughborough University in 2007 with an MA in Media and Cultural Analysis she began a crusade against the State and corporate entities she suspected were either involved in corruption, or even collusion with overseas powers. Then, after she had tasted the sweet success of ousting the “public office parasites” she focussed more on conspiracy theories of a different nature; the sort that most journalists shirked from: the unexplained.

In her blog (which she added to just three days before her disappearance) she had revealed her intention to learn more about a curious show of lights that many witnesses had reported to be hovering over a place known locally as the Carston Rocks. The phenomenon was widely talked about, accompanied by countless theories about the origin of the show which could often be seen on a clear night.

A flurry of visits from cold-questioning civil servants each time the lights had been seen was in itself an indication that something more was happening. As if Gillian’s interested could not be piqued further.

Her entry for the 31st October 2012 read: “This is what the unknown looks like. And who wants to know the unknown? Everyone. It’s human nature, folks! That’s the ideology driving my next project. No-one dare stop me, not the civil servants, the police, the army. The list of recklessly extravagant safeguards against us knowing what’s out there continues to grow. It’s time for the truth.” Other than a short comment posted on the 1st November those are, at least publicly, her last words.

The reason we’re telling you all of this? Simple: we need your help. We’re a group of people who knew her better than most. We knew what drove her, what fed her curiosity and what she would do to reach the truth. And as far as we’re concerned, her vanishing was no accident.

We don’t trust the police to put in the effort they say they will this time, nor do we think they know as little about her disappearance as they say they do. But we do trust the power and effectiveness of free speech: and that's where you come in.

We know it won’t be long until the searches are called off again, and when they are we'll do everything we can to keep her name - and the search for her - alive. Her safety and survival warrants more media attention than authorities are willing to give. We need members of the public who can help to help; to offer theories about where she may be, to let us know if she has been seen, to come up with ways to retrace her steps, and perhaps even to find out a little more about what it was she had locked onto at Carston Rocks.

Please don’t let Gillian Gold’s case be siphoned into a filing cabinet to be forgotten about. She is out there somewhere still.

For further information please see www.vanishedfilm.org

Nine ladies Film is an Independent film production company, specialising in film and documentary.

Nineladiesfilm
17 Nether Gardens
Wirksworth
Derbyshire
UK

This release was published on openPR.