THE father of a two-year-old girl who went missing from a German army base 36 years ago has spoken of his fresh hope of finding her in the light of a major new development in the case.

Katrice Lee disappeared from a Naafi shopping complex in Paderborn as she and her mother shopped for her second birthday party on November 28, 1981.

Her father Richard Lee, from Hartlepool, was serving as a Sergeant Major and has spent almost four decades trying to trace her.

Now the Royal Military Police (RMP) has issued an image of a suspect they want to speak to in connection with Katrice's disappearance.

An eyewitness was said to have seen the man carrying a small child into a green saloon vehicle at around the time she went missing.

Warrant Officer 1 Richard O'Leary, from the RMP, told BBC's Crimewatch programme: "We have a witness who has produced a photo-fit of a man seen holding a child similar to Katrice and getting into the back of a green car sat the time of the disappearance.

"We want to know who that person is and if anyone can come forward."

"The Katrice Lee family have had a 36-year nightmare, not knowing what has happened to their daughter or sister. If we can help solve what happened to Katrice and give them some sort of resolution, that would be really good.

"If someone does know what happened to Katrice we'd like them to come forward, or if they had a green car themselves and had a child similar-looking to Katrice, we'd like them to come forward so we can eliminate them.

"There were 1,500 people in the shop that day so someone will have seen what happened."

The Lee family have been campaigning for access to the original case files from the Military Police investigation as they believe it was mishandled at the time.

Last night Mr Lee told The Northern Echo: "This does give us hope that we are moving in the right direction to getting an answer as to what has happened to Katrice.

"I welcome it as a family and as a father, but I also question it.

"You look at the e-fit and they don't do e-fits like that any more. That is an old e-fit. I came to the conclusion that the e-fit is 36 years old, so I would like to know why has it only now been put out on Crimewatch. Why have they sat on it for 36 years?"

He said after Katrice went missing it had been assumed too quickly that she had wandered into a nearby stream and drowned.

"The day Katrice went missing I stood with Sharon, her mother, on the door step of the Naafi and I said, this is going to be a long one. I don't know why I said it, I just knew it was going to be a long time and I still maintain that we will get to know where Katrice is.

"For us to say that we want her at our side is wrong. I appreciate the fact she has a life, she is a 38-year-old woman now. I think that is the only way we can treat the situation once we get her back. I firmly believe we will get her back."

An RMP spokesman said: "This is a newly identified line of inquiry as a result of analysing approximately 11,000 documents including eye witness statements.”"

He said they were appealing for information about Katrice's disappearance from the Schloss Neuhaus area in 1981, including anyone who visited the Naafi store around the time of the disappearance and had not been spoken to by police.

  • Anyone with information can call the Operation Bute incident number 0800 616 888.