Why was Amber Peat only reported missing at nearly 1am? Coroner asks

Assistant coroner Laurinder Bower asked Mrs Peat about the events leading up to her daughter going missing.

Amber’s body was found in bushes on June 2 near her home in Westfield Lane, Mansfield after a whole community mounted a search for her.

Kelly told the inquest on May 30 2015 when she went missing Amber had been asked to clean a cool box.

It was the day after the family had returned from a holiday in Cornwall.

She told the inquest that the family had shared chores when they got home.

“I said go into the kitchen it won’t clean itself.

“She was just staring at me.

“She just kept repeating “Mum, Mum, Mum” I want to talk to you.

“I went into the living room at that point and shut the door - we heard the door shut.”

“She was obviously angry, I’m not sure at what.”

She said she put the washing down and went outside but her daughter was gone.

It was the last time she had seen her alive.

Her 13 year old daughter had gone missing with no telephone, little money and no food or drink.

She said she had gone out and checked the water and oil in her car and then had driven with the family to the nearby Tesco and then a car wash.

“I wasn’t really worried at that point.” She said.

They had taken in turns to go to the houses of people Amber knew to go look for her.

But it wasn’t until 12.56 am on May 31- seven and a half hours after she went missing that they had called the police.

Mrs Peat said her daughter had gone missing before.

She said: “I wanted to give her time to wind down.”

On reflection it had been too long to leave her.

At Nottingham Coroner’s court yesterday (Monday February 11), assistant coroner Laurinder Bower questioned her stepfather Danny Peat why it had taken so long to report her missing.

He said: “At first we weren’t worried, we thought she would come back. We still expected her to turn up.

“There was a party down the street and we both thought we had seen her there.

“I just thought she was close by, hiding and watching.

“She always returned by 1am - I don’t know why I had that time in my head.”

The coroner said; “You knew a 13-year-old should have been reported missing to police well before 1am but you wanted to give some credibility to why you didn’t.”

She pointed out that Amber had always returned or been found well before that time when she had gone missing on previous occasions.