Whatever happened to the other 'Milly'?

When police dragged the body of what they thought was a young woman out of the Thames last week, Amanda "Milly" Dowler's parents Robert and Sally were not the only ones to fear the worst.

Single mother Linda Pickford was every bit as desperate. For her eldest daughter Lucy, 14, had gone missing on exactly the same day as Milly, and her mother had not heard from her since.

"When that body was pulled out of the river I thought it could have been Lucy, I really did," said Mrs Pickford, from Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire. Newspapers not only reported the Dowlers' fears but published photographs of other missing girls. Lucy Pickford was one of them.

In fact the body caught in the sluice gates of Sunbury lock turned out to be that of an elderly woman rather than a teenager. But that did nothing to lessen Mrs Pickford's anguish.

At 14, Lucy was just a few months older than Milly when she left her home at lunchtime on Thursday, 21 March, to meet her boyfriend at Broxbourne railway station. She did not come back. What was to follow was agonising for Mrs Pickford, until, finally, Lucy returned home safely last Thursday evening. But her story highlights the anguish caused to families when children go missing: 77,000 under-16s a year.

The story of Lucy's disappearance begins when she was a little girl.

"Lucy was never easy," said Mrs Pickford, a 35-year-old mother-of-five who lives on income support in a little terraced house on a Sixties estate. "She suffered from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) as a child, and she craved attention all the time.

"At first it was just not sleeping very much, demanding attention and generally scatty behaviour. But then she changed to being violent and abusive as she got older. She started having difficulties with other children at school, making life difficult for them. The school complained."

Perhaps there is another factor to be taken into account. Mrs Pickford said: "Everyone says the trouble really started eight years ago when Lucy's dad went off with another woman." Linda had three children with her husband, who was training to be a teacher when he left.

"I was pregnant when Lucy's father went off," Mrs Pickford said. "He started a fling with another woman, so I threw him out. He's had nothing to do with Lucy since then."

Mrs Pickford has had two more children with another partner. She and he are not together any more. She said: "The truth is, me and Lucy clashed a lot. She couldn't control her behaviour. She'd make constant demands, never sit still, always disrupt everything, and wouldn't think twice about slapping somebody if they didn't agree with her."

In October last year Lucy met her 18-year-old boyfriend Richard "when he was sleeping in a neighbour's taxi", according to Mrs Pickford. "I told her that I couldn't let him stay with us but I managed to find him a local bed and breakfast.

"But on Christmas Eve I said he could stay with us. I didn't want him to be alone at Christmas. But when he went back to the B&B on Boxing Day, after he and Lucy had been arguing, he smashed it up. So they threw him out.

"I took him back because I couldn't see him back on the streets. Lucy was so clingy with him. In fact, he decided he wanted to leave but she wouldn't let him. There were terrible arguments."

Of course Richard and Lucy did not share a bed. He had to sleep on the sofa downstairs, or on the floor in her brother's room, which is very small. "The two little ones sleep with me, and Lucy sleeps with her sister. There are only three bedrooms," said Mrs Pickford.

Finally Richard did leave - and Lucy went with him. Mrs Pickford said: "They disappeared to his mum in Tunbridge Wells. But she told them she'd only have them for a night. Lucy still wouldn't come home."

Lucy came back on her mother's 35th birthday, 26 February, and it seemed everything was going to be fine. "But then Richard phoned her and everything went wrong. She ran off again for three days," said Mrs Pickford.

On Mother's Day, 10 March, Lucy was back again with Richard in tow. Mrs Pickford said: "I refused to have him in the house. I just couldn't deal with the other four kids, and her, and Richard. So she disappeared again."

Three days later Lucy and Richard were picked up at Gatwick railway station by the police and brought back but, said Mrs Pickford, "she ran off when they stopped to let Richard out of the car near Hoddesdon. She ended up sleeping in an abandoned car in Tottenham".

The police brought her home at 4am on 21 March. A few hours later she was gone again - this time for five weeks.

There was some news of her: on 23 March she was arrested for alleged shoplifting in Croydon. Mrs Pickford said: "Richard rang me from the police station to say that they'd both been arrested and I told him, 'If you don't bring her back here I'll kill you,' but he never did."

Two weeks later Linda got a telephone call. "'Mum, it's me, Lucy,' this little voice said," Mrs Pickford recalled. "So I asked her where she was. 'Just tell me you love me,' she said, so I did." But Lucy would not say where she was, saying she feared her mother would send the police to get her.

But last Thursday evening, Lucy came back safe and sound - "though Richard is still around, sleeping rough, I think," Mrs Pickford said cautiously.

She has no idea how Lucy lived and supported herself during those five weeks away from home. Other teenagers have fallen into shoplifting or even prostitution.

In fact, 100,000 young people run away every year in Britain. Girls, from the age of 14 upwards, are twice as likely to leave home as boys.

Chillingly, the statistics also reveal that 44 per cent of children who run away for a week or more are hurt while on the run, and 67 per cent of those who have stayed with someone they have met have also been hurt. Thankfully, like Lucy, many survive their experiences.

"I'm luckier than Milly's parents," said Mrs Pickford. "Lucy didn't just disappear into thin air. But she'd still gone, and I didn't know if she was safe."

The agony of every moment she suffered while her daughter was missing is still etched in her face. "There were times when I thought, I know I'll never see her again. Thank goodness she's back."