Claudia Lawrence’s mother claims the BBC is pursuing a missing university chef for a TV license fee

Claudia Lawrence’s mother has claimed the BBC is hunting her missing daughter for her license fee and threatened court action – 14 years after she disappeared.

The chef, 35, has not been seen since she failed to show up to work at York University in March 2009, but messages still arrived on her property from the company.

Investigators believe Mrs. Lawrence – who lived in York’s Hayworth borough – was murdered, although no body was ever found.

But her mum Joan, 79, revealed how the claimant at her daughter’s terraced cottage “threatened court action and a £1,000 fine”, the sun reports.

She says the demands have caused “indescribable grief” and has called on the police to stop the BBC from sending letters to the property.

Joan kept her daughter home alone after her ex-husband, Peter, passed away at the age of 74 in 2021.

He campaigned for answers to the mystery of her disappearance and spent years debating what became the Guardianship (Missing Persons) Law – also known as the Claudia Law – which allows relatives to control the finances of missing loved ones.

North Yorkshire Police conducted two investigations and questioned nine people in connection with her disappearance and the suspected murder, but no charges were ever laid.

After a letter was found in her daughter’s home threatening legal action and a fine in January, Joanne contacted the Television Licensing Authority to plead with them to stop sending the applications.

But her desperate request was ignored and another letter then arrived at the address.

Receiving the letters causes her “indescribable grief,” Joan said, with requests for payment still being received despite efforts to notify all parties involved.

This comes despite the disappearance of her daughter, and a public outcry from Joan, after she appeared on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme.

She added, “You’d think they’d know by now, after all the publicity, wouldn’t you?

They must have sent two or three letters a year the whole time this was happening. One of them was bad and terrible. She threatened that failure to pay could affect her credit score.

I’m not someone who has ever had any debt, I pay for things instantly, so it was a terrible read. You should really stop.

She drives half an hour to visit Claudia’s cottage from her home in Malton, North Yorkshire, every two weeks.

Conservative MPs have criticized the BBC for continuing to send letters to the missing Claudia.

Kevin Foster, MP for Torbay, told The Sun: ‘My heart goes out to Claudia Joan’s mum. It gets worse for the BBC, it’s impossible to justify these demands.

“If anything, it just provides a reason to decriminalize paying for a television service.”

Morecambe and Lonsdale MP David Morris added that the situation was “a disgrace” and “there are simply no excuses”.

Police activity around Claudia’s case increased in 2021 when the North Yorkshire force spent two weeks searching a nearby lake and woodland outside York, but hopes of a breakthrough were subsequently dashed.

Teams of police experts, search dogs, divers and forensic archaeologists spent two weeks scouring a nearby lake and forest for possible places where her body could have been left.

In a public appeal last year, Joan said she continues to try to solve the mystery herself and goes over what happened with a “fine-toothed comb” looking for “simple things that weren’t missed.”

A spokesperson for the Television Licensing Authority said: ‘We regret any ordeal Lawrence has experienced. She also indicated that the property might be occupied at some point, the television license suspended any messages to the address for three months.

“However, the property remains empty and we have placed an indefinite hold at the address today and this will not be removed until we are notified that the property is held.”