Family agony over Heather
The parents of a Stourbridge barmaid who went missing at sea on a family holiday today spoke of their anguish at not knowing their daughter's fate.
Nick Harris and Diane Moore said have been "stuck in limbo" since their 20-year-old daughter went missing from a boat off the coast of the Isle of Wight on Wednesday last week.
Mr Harris said he had watched the coastguard helicopter unaware it was searching for Heather.
Her friend Richard Perry, aged 28, who was in the boat with her, was hauled from the sea but certified dead at hospital.
But despite a massive search of the area, there has been no sign of Heather. Her parents were today back at the home they share with Heather in Woodfield Avenue, Wollescote. Mr Harris said: "I helped launch the boat with Richard and then we waved them off.
"The sea didn't seem that rough and they had both been out in the boat before on holidays.
"We were still taking photographs from the shore when the coastguards helicopter went overhead and we even said to each other 'I wonder who they are looking for' it wasn't until a short time later we realised they were looking for Heather."
Mr Harris, who runs a small engineering firm in Lye, said: "There has still been no news, they haven't found her yet. We just feel we are stuck in limbo."
Mr Harris said Heather's boyfriend Jason Glazzard had returned to the Isle of Wight. "He cannot rest either and so has gone back out there until there is news of what has happened.
He said the couple had been together two years after meeting through mutual friends who lived in the same area. Heather, a former Grange School pupil, worked part-time as a barmaid at The Foresters Arms in Wollaston. Heather's employer Sue Gardiner today spoke of her and colleagues' "devastation".
