Claudia's father speaks of hope

Mr Lawrence said his daughter was happy and hard-working

The father of missing York chef Claudia Lawrence has said he believes his daughter is still alive and is being held "against her will".

Peter Lawrence said the 35-year-old was not the sort of person to go "off on a jaunt" without telling anyone.

It is four months since Miss Lawrence was last seen near her home on the city's Heworth Road.

The alarm was raised when the chef failed to turn up at her work at York's Goodricke College on 19 March.

Detectives are treating her disappearance as suspected murder.

Speaking at a press conference today, Mr Lawrence said despite "extensive searches" by the police, his daughter had not been found.

"It leads me, and has led me for some considerable time to the conclusion that Claudia is being held somewhere against her will," he said.

Mr Lawrence said his daughter was a "happy, straightforward, hard-working, smiling" young woman.

"You cannot begin to imagine what the last four months have been like for me, for Claudia's mum and her sister," he said.

"She was not someone who would willingly go off on a jaunt on her own without saying anything at all."

Crimestoppers has offered a £10,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of those responsible for Miss Lawrence's disappearance.

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It is four months since the university chef vanished