We really needed help from Missing People when Alice vanished

YELLOW ribbons printed with #Find Alice tied to trees and railings became the symbol of one of the country's biggest missing person hunts.

- SIOBHAN MCNALLY

Alice Gross's worried friends and family were joined by hundreds of residents in West London who put up thousands of posters of the missing 14-year-old.

Their campaign was so impactful and smiling Alice, with a flower in her hair, so recognisable that more than 10 years later people still remember her.

For 34 days that summer, Alice's tormented family lived in hope that their little girl would come home.

But a month later the ribbons, still fluttering in the wind, became a memorial to the teenager, whose body was found in a river.

SHOCK

On Thursday, August 28, 2014, mum Ros Hodgkiss, 61, called the police when Alice did not return from a walk after five hours. Despite reassurances, Ros was worried for her daughter, who was anorexic, had mental health issues and was seen as high risk.

The teen had no money with her and her phone had died. A police helicopter searched the area and Ros, husband Jose and daughter Nina, then 19, slept in the living room awaiting a knock on the door.