Irish Teen Missing in Spain

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Irish Teen Missing in Spain

January 11, 2008

By Paddy Clancy

ALTHOUGH there’s a 12-year age-gap, 15-year-old Dublin-born Amy Fitzpatrick’s mystery disappearance on the Costa De Sol in southern Spain has echoes of the tragedy of missing 3-year-old Madeleine McCann.

Madeleine’s disappearance last year without trace from her parents’ holiday apartment in neighboring Portugal prompted widespread sympathy in Ireland because of her family’s Donegal connections. There are fears she was abducted by child trafffickers.

Fears also abound that Amy may have been kidnapped on a short walk from a friend’s house on New Year’s night to her mother’s home near Fuengirola.

Spanish police are treating the disappearance officially as a missing person case, but they have also been working their way through lists of known Irish and British sex criminals living on the Costa Del Sol.

A Spanish police source said, “We will track down and interview all those who are on our lists with links to the area. They will be questioned about movements from January 1 and asked about alibis.

“There is a possibility that Amy may have been abducted, and we are becoming increasingly worried each day that she is not found.”

Amy moved from Coolock, Dublin, to Spain with her mother, 39-year-old Audrey, and 17-year-old brother Dean, three years ago. Friends said she never settled in the country.

She was due to make a trip to Ireland on St. Stephen’s Day but it was postponed. That upset her.

Her closest friend in Spain, Ashley Rose, said, “She said she couldn’t wait to get back to Ireland. She said she’d had enough of Spain. She went to two different schools and got bullied at both. All she wanted to do was go back to Ireland.

“She was hoping that maybe she could go back and live with some of her family there.”

Amy’s father, Christopher, still lives in Dublin. He has put a note on her Bebo website pleading with her to make contact. He wrote, “Amy, it is Dad. Please get in touch with me. I am really worried.”

When Amy disappeared she did not have any cash with her. She wore clothes borrowed from her friend Ashley and was carrying her own soiled clothes in a plastic bag.

She does not hold her own passport as she travels on her mother’s. Her cell phone was broken.

Her distraught mother admitted they had their differences and Amy would storm out of their home threatening to leave and not come back.

“This time it is different. On previous occasions I always knew where she was and saw her as she stayed with friends locally. This disappearance is different as she has got nothing –- no clothes, no make-up,” Audrey said.

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