Mum reunited with missing son who disappeared 12 years ago

A mum has been reunited with her son after fearing he was dead when he disappeared more than a decade ago.

Joyce Curtis, from Glasgow, believed she would never see her son Nicholas again after she last heard from him in 2010.

She had been told he was hitchhiking around France and Spain and thought he might have succumbed to COVID during the pandemic.

But, on 19 December, she received a phone call informing her that her son was alive and in hospital in the South of France.

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"When I got the call to say he was alive I just went into shock. All I did was cry all day," Joyce said.

"This has just made Christmas for me, especially since my husband died back in June.

"It’s like that film ‘Miracle on 34th Street’. It’s like a miracle.

"I’d resigned myself to the fact that he had died. I really thought that and I think everybody thought the same.”

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Nicholas left home in the mid-2000s to travel Europe after losing his job as a joiner.

He told his mum he had been hitchhiking, and Joyce believes he spent some time living rough on the streets of Paris.

She decided to report him as missing in 2009 as she hadn't heard from her son "for ages."

A year later, Joyce was contacted by the British Consulate in Paris to notify her that Nicholas had been admitted to hospital in France.

She then flew to visit him with her husband - but that would be the last time she would see or hear from him in over a decade.

Joyce added: "Me and my husband went over to visit him and it was that good to see him.

"We were getting him home, but for some reason, I don’t know why, he just disappeared again.

"They were sending him home and I was told he was getting put on a flight."

She said: "I was waiting in work. But he never got home."

Joyce received the news that he was alive when the British Consulate contacted her to alert her that he had been admitted to a French hospital for a second time.

She added: "I spoke to him on the phone. He looks healthy.

"I asked him, ‘Are you coming home Nikky?’ And he said, ‘Aye’.

"I can’t imagine what he’s been through. I just need to get him home."

Nicholas is now planning to return home, but Joyce is keen to travel over to France with her daughter to see him.

She said: “I’m not building my hopes up yet until I get him home."

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office spokesperson added: “We are supporting a British man in France and are providing assistance to his family.

"We are in contact with the local authorities."