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"A Birmingham company has joined in the search for Sarah Payne, the eight-year-old that has been missing from her Sussex home for nearly two weeks. Childlo.st publishes details of missing children on its website and have now created a page dedicated to Sarah. Richard Bennett and Eddie Bowcott from Childlo.st are in the studio, good morning gents," Paul "Good morning" Richard Bennett "Good morning Paul" Eddie Bowcott "I don't know whether you have seen that programme on Channel 4, when we were talking beforehand you said that you hadn't, but it is E-millionaire I think they have called it, and these people come up with wonderful ideas to create websites and some of them have been really revolutionary. This is one such idea, to me." Paul "Thanks for the tip, we are going to get in touch." Richard Bennett "It's too late now. They were going to give a million pounds worth of funding, you could have done with that, couldn't you?" Paul "We certainly could have done. It's a huge financial drain on our company, but it is something that is a public service, free of charge and we are proud to do it. We work with the families and the Police of the missing children, and the forces that are involved in it. It works very very well." Richard "Just tell us where the idea for the website Childlo.st came from, then?" Paul "Well, I am involved in a lot of charities for children with the Philip Green Memorial Trust in London and also involved with the Edwards Trust here in Birmingham and people were saying to me at the beginning of this year, in fact, that there didn't seem to be an efficient website for children when they go lost or when they go missing. We know this is a serious problem in America, so we decided to set up a Childlo.st site, which is www.childlo.st, but there is no .com or .org at the end of it, it is just childlo.st and you put the dot halfway through the lost, the lo.st. So we came up with a very simple new type of domain website address to make it very very easy and we started reporting children going missing. Of course, fortunately in a way, I suppose we can say that word, when Sarah went missing, and this will be the fourteenth night tonight, may I add, when Sarah Payne went missing we were geared up to immediately start publishing all the facts that were coming in from various agencies including the Sussex Police who have been extremely helpful." Eddie "You are in regular contact with the Police about Sarah and other missing children, are you?" Paul "Exactly, yeah, I mean we worked well with the West Midlands Police two or three weeks ago with the case of Andrew Bishop, we were able to get a lot of publicity around that case, this was a little boy that went missing for five days," Richard "And this was in Dudley?" Paul "Yes, exactly, a Dudley boy, and he was wearing pyjamas, and that turned out to have a happy ending, so you know we are hopeful of the same result with Sarah." Richard "Are you endorsed by the Police force all over the country now, effectively?" Paul "As and when a case comes up, yes, I mean for the Police to provide us with information, they checked the site out, they check us out, they know that we are doing the right thing and then of course they provide us with the information. We work, as we say, very closely with the parents. The parents are always desperate to get the information out in as many formats as possible and the internet is the best method overseas as well." Richard "It is a fantastic way of doing it now, because you mentioned America and they have pictures of the kids on cartons of milk over there and all sorts of things." Paul "That's right." Richard "Well, we are very fortunate in the United Kingdom because we do not have too many of this type of situation, fortunately. America has a very serious problem, but going on to the point about Police endorsement, I am currently speaking to the Home Office Liason Officer, and we do need to get the site approved by the Home Office so that we can get a greater degree of information from various Police Forces." Eddie "At the moment, when a Police Force gets involved we need to persuade them that our site is O.K., we want that to be the norm." Richard "Are they a little sceptical then?" Paul "I think they need to check everybody out in this field. They need to find out people's intentions and once we talk to them, they are quite happy." Richard "Have you spoken to the family of Sarah at all?" Paul "Very regularly. I talk to Sara Payne, she is an incredible woman, probably five or six times a day. She provides me with different information to what is available in the normal outlets. She is very very confident. We have had over 25,000 hits on this site since Sarah has gone missing, you know this is to be recognised. Everybody who looks at the site is a potential witness. No doubt about that." Richard "Well, we are hoping that Sarah will be found. One of the other children that people might remember is Ben Needham, who has been missing for long time. He disappeared on the island of Kos." Paul "That's right. Over to you." Richard "Well, we have actually got the Needham family with us during the course of today in Birmingham. On the 24th July 1991, nine years ago, little Ben went missing and this family has suffered that trauma now for nine years, which has been hell for them. So what we are doing with Childlo.st, we are actually building a dedicated website for Ben Needham, Childlo.st. That will be the domain for that." Eddie "There have been one or two sightings of him, haven't there? Reported sightings, anyway." Paul "There have. This is the boy that the Police was sold to a childless family, that is a matter of record. The Needham family truly believe that the best chance they have got is of Ben actually reading his own website. He will be coming to an age now, if he is in a family that are O.K. financially, he will have a computer, he will be surfing the net, and this is a boy that has got two birthmarks. He is going to read about them on this site, if, please God, he is safe and well." Richard "I think it is a wonderful idea, I am not sure what the listener's views are. 0121 432 2000 if you want to join us, have you had any specific successes with tracking people down using the website?" Paul "I think we can count the Andrew Bishop case as a success, the Police were so grateful, as a result of the publicity that we generated on BBC Radio WM, the local press, the Express and Star, apparently people in the area were on foot and in cars searching the area, it was actually a Policeman who found him, but the whole area was made aware or even more aware of this case. So we do count that as a success." Richard "And you launched the site on 25th May, so it is pretty recent?" Paul "As I say, that was National Child Lost Day in America." Eddie "We wish you well," Paul "Thank you" Eddie "Particularly with the search for Sarah Payne, and best of luck with the website. It is www.childlo.st, but the dot comes after the "o" in childlost. So it is like childlo - dot - st." Paul "That's right." Eddie "I'm going to have a look at that site." Paul "Do it. If you can push it, the site is fabulous, but it is no good unless people are looking at it. If you can just give us a mention every now and then it really is a worthwhile site." Richard "It is what you are doing with it, I think, that is the key for everybody." Paul "Is it possible to make just another quick announcement as such? The Payne family, we have actually set up a link in their home, a computer link to the childlo.st computer system and Sarah's mother and the family will be posting messages directly onto the Childlost site as and when they choose to, as a little bit of extra information, live from the family. I would just like to thank British Telecom, because we asked them to put an extra line in their home and they did it within three hours in a very isolated part of the country and we have got a lot of thanks for British Telecom." Eddie "Everyone wants to have a moan about BT, but at times like this, they pulled all the stops out, there is a two-week wait for that sort of thing, 3 hours, so well done to them." Richard "If we had a Dove award on this show, we would give them one, but we will pass the message on to Ed Doolan and he will do that." Paul "Thank you" Eddie "Thanks for joining us - Richard Bennett and Eddie Bowcott from Childlo.st." "Thank you very much indeed." Eddie
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