Justice, one step at a time (From Thisisdorset)

Justice, one step at a time

9:00am Monday 22nd March 2010 in Latest By Andy Martin

ONE afternoon in September 2004, I sat in a small flat in central Italy talking to a woman whose world had fallen apart more than a decade earlier. Her daughter, 16-year-old Elisa Claps, had disappeared without a trace in their home town of Potenza.

Filomena Claps told me: “When I have found out what happened to Elisa I can close the book and I can have somewhere to take flowers for her. After that, God can call me whenever he wants to.”

Last Wednesday, a body was found by workmen in the church in Potenza’s main square and her family believe it will be confirmed as Elisa’s. Her personal effects lay nearby. Behind the scenes, senior Dorset detectives are working closely with their Italian counterparts because the discovery is the biggest single breakthrough in another case, that of murdered Bournemouth mother Heather Barnett. Justice may be edging closer for the Claps family. After nearly eight years, it’s almost certainly closer for Heather’s family too. The net is tightening.