Legal bid to declare missing Downham Market doctor David Lidgey dead

On their wedding day in 1995, Shona Lidgey with her husband David Lidgey who went missing a year ago and has not been in contact since. Picture: Submitted (Image: Archant © 2012)

Dr David Lidgey left his home in Hilgay, near Downham Market, in June 2011. He left his wife a note saying: 'Gone for a walk.'

Since then, the 51-year-old's whereabouts have been a mystery. His wife Shona, also a GP, and the couple's three children have made emotional appeals for Dr Lidgey to get in touch.

Mrs Lidgey later said her husband, who she met at medical school, had suffered depression since they moved from London to Norfolk around seven years before he disappeared.

He went missing after driving the children to school, leaving his car, wallet and mobile phone behind.

Now lawyers have applied to the High Court for a 'declaration of the presumed death' of Dr Lidgey.

It says anyone with an interest in the matter can apply to the court within 21 days should they wish to intervene.

Seven years after a person disappears, they can legally be presumed dead.

Speaking two years after her husband's disappearance, Shona Lidgey said she had to 'change and adapt' to cope with life without him, as she faced the increasingly likely possibility that he may never return.

Although she said the 'traumatically horrible' event had made her a 'harder, more independent' person, she said: 'We want him to come back so we can resolve things.

'For me, it was overwhelming being plunged into being a single parent. I am missing the person I'd want to talk about my children with.

'I am more independent and have to deal with a lot of things myself. I've become quite different and even more confident. However, we want to know what's happened to him.'

Asked what her personal message to her husband would be, she said: 'It would say to him to get in touch for the sake of his children, because they have been affected the most.

'David is a huge loss to our lives still and always will be. He left a massive gap that can't be filled.'