'There's not an hour goes by without me thinking of him'

Nicki Durbin says she is glued to the TV when a big missing persons story is in the news

Missing people: 'There's not an hour goes by without me thinking of him'

Nicki Durbin's son Luke disappeared in 2006. What more be done to help her and others left behind by missing people?

It was one of the shortest but most poignant messages posted by old friends of Becky Godden-Edwards on an online tribute page: "I love u Becky. Why did u lose contact?"

The discovery of Godden-Edwards's remains in a farmer's field in Gloucestershire by police investigating the murder of the Swindon nightclubber Sian O'Callaghan has prompted many to ask the same sort of question. Why do so many people – at least 200,000 a year in Britain – simply vanish, and can more be done to try to find them and to support people they leave behind?

Luke Durbin disappeared in May 2006. Photograph: Guardian

Nicki Durbin's son, Luke, a bright, sociable 19-year-old, disappeared in May 2006 after going out clubbing with friends in Ipswich. "I know families always say that not one day goes by without them thinking about their loved one. But if I'm very honest there's not an hour goes by without me thinking about Luke," she says.

"Certain times are very difficult. Anniversaries, or when the season changes. It's another spring or winter that he's not here. I hope I'll see him again but I know it's not a very realistic hope. I can be working and hear a song in the background and I'm thinking of Luke and I have to keep functioning somehow."

Durbin, a charity fundraiser, says she finds herself glued to the television when a big missing persons story is in the news. She feels relief when a newly found body turns out to be a woman's – then something like envy that at least the family knows what happened to their loved one.

She says her confidence in the police has been eroded over the years. At times she has felt they were not listening to her and Luke's friends. She has had to "basically scream" to get her son's case taken on by Suffolk's major investigation team.

According to the National Police Improvement Agency, which runs the national Missing Persons Bureau, police in Britain record about 1,000 missing reports every day, although some refer to the same person. It estimates that 200,000 people went missing in 2009/10.

Most return or are found quickly but almost 2,000 people a year remain outstanding and around 20 people a week are found dead after being reported missing. The numbers could be bigger; the NPIA accepts that its data is not complete, partly because not all forces (including Wiltshire, the force investigating the deaths of Godden-Edwards and O'Callaghan) handed in their figures.

A study by researchers at the University of York estimated that two thirds of those who go missing decide to go. A fifth "drift" away. Most of the rest are unintentionally absent – for example, they have mental health problems – and 1% are "forced".

The charity Missing People is campaigning for legislation to enshrine the rights of those who have vanished and those left behind. It is calling for every region to have a local missing persons co-ordinator who will hold local services to account, and for every family to have a single point of contact in the police force dealing with their case. It also wants a network of counsellors to be developed to help people whose loved ones have gone missing.

Martin Houghton-Brown, chief executive of Missing People, said: "It is incredible that in England and Wales we have no legislation relating to missing people. It is an issue that has been hidden for a long time. We are so far behind places like the US."

Missing People wants families of people who have disappeared to be given the same rights as victims of crime. "If your DVD player is stolen from your house, you'll get a letter from the police detailing all the help you can get. If your child goes missing you may get nothing," Houghton-Brown said.

Rachel Elias, the sister of the Manic Street Preachers guitarist Richey Edwards who vanished in 1995, said there was a lack of sympathy and understanding when it came to missing adults. "I think it's because of the sheer number of adults who go missing," she said. "There's also the feeling that many people choose to go missing and should be allowed to."

There was also a lack of consistency over how missing people cases are handled, Elias said. "I think there should be a single contact with the police. We didn't have that. Different forces seem to do it all in different ways, which is frustrating."

Peter Lawrence, the father of the chef Claudia Lawrence who went missing from York in 2009, said he was "totally amazed" at the problems facing families of missing people. "If you're the subject of a minor crime, even a minor theft, the state gives you victim support, all sorts of things. If someone goes missing there's absolutely nothing there at all."

It remains unclear what contact the family of Godden-Edwards – who went missing from Swindon in about 2003 when she was in her early 20s after struggling with drug addiction – had with the police and other agencies. Initially, well-placed sources said that when police broke the news to them that her body had been found, her family said they had reported her missing to officers. But the police have been unable to find any such record and are continuing to investigate whether such a report was made.

Her family's wait for news is over. Not so for Nicki Durbin, who accepts it is likely Luke is dead. "If that is the case, please let it have been an accident. If someone else is involved it's just too horrifying," she says.

The best scenario for her is that Luke went off and is living a "fantastic life" somewhere. "And if he ever comes home he'll get the biggest slap of his life – and then the biggest hug."