News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Every day, Eric Cheesman sits in his local shopping centre and scans the face of every middle-aged woman who goes by – hoping to see his long lost daughter.

Jaime was just 16 when she ­vanished without explanation 24 years ago today – November 5, 1993. And 75-year-old Eric is adamant she is still alive.

“I’ll never understand why she disappeared without a word,” he says softly. “I’m just desperate for her to get in touch. I think about Jaime every day – I want nothing more than to give her a big hug.”

Eric even believes he came within yards of Jaime 11 years after she vanished, at a market stall close to the family home.

(Image: Sunday People)

Agonisingly, his arthritis meant he was unable to keep up with the young woman and he lost sight of her as she disappeared in the crowd.

But he said: “I’m convinced it was her. My gut feeling has always been that she’s still alive.

“My head was all over the place and I tried to keep her in my sights, but I couldn’t move fast enough.

“Before I knew it, she was gone. I called the police right away and we spent hours poring over CCTV images, but I couldn’t spot the girl I’d seen. She’d already been gone 11 years, but she looked so like her.”

It is just one of nine potential sightings of Jaime, leading detectives to believe she could still be alive.

Jaime, of Wellingborough, Northants, vanished after telling Eric and wife Barbara she was going to stay with a friend for a few days in Grimsby, Lincs – 130 miles away.

She planned to return home on the Saturday, but on the Friday evening her parents received a panicked phone call from one of her friends.

Eric said: “The last thing Jaime said to me was that she’d see me on Saturday. I didn’t give her a hug –perhaps I should have. Her friend called to say she’d gone missing.

(Image: Sunday People)

“She said they’d been at a flat when Jaime had had an ­argument with someone, and she’d gone off. I woke my wife and we rang the ­police straight away. We just didn’t understand.”

Jaime had left school in the summer and hoped to begin a career in childcare after doing work ­experience in a nursery.

But she had also made friends with members of a travelling community who settled temporarily nearby. One police theory is that she may have adopted their nomadic lifestyle.

As an extensive police search found no sign of Jaime, Eric says he and Barbara began to fear the worst.

(Image: ITV)

He said: “Of course, we worried she was dead. The worst moment was when a body was found close to where she’d disappeared.

“It was a huge relief when the DNA tests proved it wasn’t Jaime – but we still weren’t any closer to knowing the truth.”

Months later, police began to get unconfirmed sightings of Jaime. And over the next two years, officers were told that a teenager matching her description was spotted in several locations around Northampton and Milton Keynes, Bucks.

By 1996 the trail appeared to have gone cold. But in 2000, police were told Jaime had been seen at a club in Northampton. Eric’s market sighting followed in 2004.

Police say no more sightings were ­recorded until 2011, when a woman matching Jaime’s description was seen in Alnwick, Northumberland.

Heartbreakingly mum Barbara, who had Parkinson’s, died in 2012 at 69, never knowing what happened to her girl. Now Eric fears he will suffer the same fate.

He said: “Barbara spent the last five years of her life in a nursing home but I visited her every day.

“She’d ask a lot about Jaime, and if there was any new information on her. It was hard for me to keep telling her there were no real developments.

“Now she’s gone, Jaime is the only ­family I have. I can go weeks without speaking to anyone.

“I’m scared I’ll die too before I find out where Jaime is.”

Earlier this year, Jaime’s image was beamed to the nation on Britain’s Got Talent, during a performance by a choir from the Missing People charity.

(Image: Nicholas Bowman/Sunday Mirror)

Sadly, it did not lead to the breakthrough Eric longs for.

But the pensioner is pinning his hopes for family on rumours that Jaime had become pregnant around the time that she disappeared.

Eric is desperate to know if she has had children of her own, and he even has a collection of soft toys he says he would love to give to his grandchildren. He said: “I’d love to know if I’m a ­grandad. I think about it often. I have three Winnie the Pooh teddies which I’d give to my grandkids.”

The investigation into Jaime’s ­disappearance was reopened by Humberside Police in 2016. A forensic search was carried out on the property where she was last seen, but it yielded no results.

Eric refuses to give up hope of finding her alive. With the help of Missing People, he has printed off dozens of posters ­featuring an age-progressed image of how Jaime might look now.

He passes them to people he meets in the streets, and begs shopkeepers to ­display them in their windows. He said: “Sometimes, shops will put the posters up for a while – but they always take them down after a few months.

“I don’t want people to stop looking for her. I have to keep reminding them.”

(Image: Nicholas Bowman/Sunday People)

Today, as he marks the anniversary of Jaime’s disappearance, Eric will make his lonely pilgrimage to the town centre, ­hoping to catch a glimpse of her – just like he always does.

He said: “Every day, I wonder if I’ll bump into her. I’ve got a strange feeling that our paths will cross.

“I’m not sure what I’d say, I’d just want to know why she left without a word. We hadn’t had an argument and I’d no idea anything was wrong.

“If she’s out there, I’d just like her to know I’m not angry.

“I’d like to be back in her life – but most of all I just want to know if she is okay.”