Straightening her hair and complaining about her broken phone charger, Andrea Gharshallah’s last morning with her daughter in March 2018 had been unremarkable.
A proud mother of two boys, a passionate cook of Sunday roasts and a lover of music, Georgina was surrounded by a close-knit family, which included her confidante mother and three sisters.
While her life in later years had been unpredictable and she had suffered with social anxiety and bulimia, the Gharshallah family had no inkling that once she walked out of her family home in Worthing, she would never be seen again.
Seven years and five months later, neither a police investigation nor the constant searches of her family have brought any clues.
“It’s a complete mystery,” Andrea told The Independent. “I was never aware of her having any feuds with anyone. She never mentioned anything going on, and if she had owed someone money, she would have asked me.”
At the time of her disappearance, Georgina, 30, had been unemployed and recently separated from her partner. A relationship that had been tumultuous had seen her return to live with her mother.
Despite this, she continued to visit him regularly, which is how her initial disappearance slipped through the net.
On Wednesday, 7 March, Georgina left home at 9.30am with a plan to fix her phone, visit the jobcentre and meet her father in Worthing town centre.
The last official sighting of her is recorded on CCTV at Clifton Food and Wine shop at 9.50am, where she asked the shop manager for help with her phone. She did not keep the rest of her appointments for the day, her phone disconnected from the network, and her bank accounts have not been touched since.
“I knew her phone wasn’t working, so when I didn’t hear from her for the first few days, I wasn’t initially concerned,” Andrea said. “She often went to stay with friends or with her on-off boyfriend. There was a small thing in the back of my mind, though, that she did usually let me know, and I’d sent her texts.”
Familiar with her daughter’s lifestyle, which could be erratic and involved binge-drinking, Andrea had first been annoyed. “I thought it was inconsiderate – I thought, ‘you could have at least let us know where you are’.”
It was a few days later that alarm bells began to ring, after Georgina failed to meet her children, and her ex-partner got in touch to say he had not heard from her.
After contacting local hospitals and messaging her friends on Facebook, they decided to phone the police and report her missing.
For Andrea, the investigation took a turn when detectives informed her several weeks later that Georgina’s bank accounts had not been used.
“All the time I had been listening out for her footsteps coming up the footpath and up the stairs,” she said. “We lived waiting for that, waiting for her to turn up – but it never happened. It took a very long time for me to accept that maybe she had come to harm.”
Their relationship with the police has not always been smooth sailing. Within the first few months, Andrea says, multiple people were assigned to the case, with the family unsure who was in charge until June 2019.
In August that year, they were shown CCTV of a potential sighting of Georgina with another woman at 3.30pm on Chapel Road. Despite her family being convinced that it was her, it was later removed from an appeal due to police uncertainty.
Frustrations have also mounted over the lack of publicity and urgency the case has received. “I’d see cases across the UK becoming high profile in a day or two, and I would email the police and say, ‘how come a girl in Yorkshire has drones and searches and police teams?’,” Andrea added.
“As time went by, I accused them of discriminating against my daughter because of her lifestyle choices, or race or social discrimination. If Georgina had been a blonde, blue-eyed girl who worked in Barclays, she would have had more attention.”
Sussex Police strongly denies this accusation, and a referral to the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) in 2022 found no reason to investigate.
A spokesperson for the force said: “We have conducted multiple physical searches as part of our efforts to find out what happened to Georgina. This includes the use of specialist search teams and equipment to carry out rigorous tests of sites near where Georgina went missing, such as Teville Gate, which was under construction at the time. However, to date, nothing has been found that would help progress our investigation.”
They added that they had participated in TV interviews and had followed up on more than 100 possible sightings of Georgina from across the country.
While her case has now been registered as a no-body homicide, Andrea refuses to have her daughter declared deceased. “We most probably think Georgina has come to harm, but I will never, ever, register her as no longer alive until they produce evidence to say what happened to her,” she said.
The death of Claudia Lawrence’s father in 2021 had particularly struck a nerve. The 35-year-old chef from Yorkshire had disappeared in 2009, and while her body has never been found, police believe she was murdered.
“It really brought it home to me that he died and never knew what had happened,” she said. “That must be awful, spending the rest of your life trying to find answers and living for your child’s case. I think that’s my biggest fear now, coming to the end of my life and never knowing.
“If anyone knows anything or has information, we are desperately waiting. For Georgina, wherever she may be, please know that we desperately miss you.”
Detective Superintendent Andy Wolstenholme said: “From the day Georgina Gharsallah was reported missing to now, we have completed extensive enquiries to try and find her.
“Her family and friends are understandably desperate for answers, and I share their frustrations that despite exhaustive efforts, we do not know what happened to her on that day in 2018.
“My team and I remain in regular contact with Andrea, and we admire and fully support the work she does in keeping Georgina’s disappearance in the public eye.
“Our investigation’s priority is to get to the truth of what happened to Georgina and bring a conclusion to all of these years of waiting for her loved ones.”
Anyone with information should contact police online or by calling 101, quoting Operation Pavo. Reports can also be made anonymously via the independent charity Crimestoppers online or on 0800 555 111.
