‘I’m determined to find out who killed my sister Natalie Pearman’

I don’t think that the media assisted whatsoever, because they were more focused on the fact that she was a sex worker than the fact that she was a child.

I think that if she wasn’t doing that job the media portrayal of her would have been entirely different.

The main point should have been that this child was found strangled. Not that a sex worker was found strangled.

I feel anger when I see those reports. I don’t know if it would’ve made a difference in the case, but I believe that if this was to happen now, it would have been perceived completely differently.

The understanding of these ladies and the job that they do is so much different now and people understand and sympathise with them more than they did 32 years ago.

She was branded, essentially.

Being an idiot and watching all of those Netflix dramas, I thought it would be a case of ‘they’ve got his DNA, let’s ping it through the system and find a match and case closed’.

I didn’t realise how much more there was to it than that.

The detective on the case told me there was an 80% chance that we’ll never find the killer. That was like being hit by a bus.

But I do have hope and I’ve carried hope for such a long time. There are people that have these cases solved years and years after. Why can’t we be one of those people? There’s nothing to say that we won’t be that lucky.

I’ve always believed that someone knows something and has never said it, either through fear or their own personal reasons.

Natalie was a kid who was failed and murdered. No-one should have to deal with that, let alone deal with it for 32 years afterwards.

We need to do something now.