Paul Kalina reports on a series that combines drama and real pathos.

LOSING a near and dear one is a tragedy. But when someone vanishes it is doubly cruel. Is the person dead or alive? The victim of an accident, foul play or misfortune? Ill, suicidal? Or have they opted out to search for a better life? Who knows?

For a medium that is often criticised for mindlessness and escapism, there are some topics that television occasionally strays into that are everything but. In Channel Nine's observational documentary series Missing Persons Unit we witness just a few of the 30,000 cases of missing persons that are reported each year in Australia.

Only some of the stories have happy endings, and even those that do are tainted with suffering.

The mother of Melbourne sisters Penny Green-McNeilly and Jacqui Wright went missing 30 years ago. Green-McNeilly, 44, and Wright, 37, are certain she is alive. Over the years there have been numerous sightings by family members. The sightings are unrelated, yet have enough in common to suggest they are credible.

According to the sisters, Veronica was a loving and caring mother stuck in a miserable marriage during a time when such problems were quietly endured. She suffered from depression and had attempted suicide.

Their father, Green-McNeilly recalls, was something of a lady's man. He also threatened to hunt down Veronica should she take off with the girls.

"People loved our mother, I've never heard anyone say a bad word against her," says Wright.

"And that includes my dad's brothers and sisters. A lot of people say that she adored us, her girls, and they find it hard to believe that she would have left us. But she was that desperate. Apparently she cried at work all day the day she left."

The case was close to the heart of Senior Constable Helen Nugent of the Victorian Police's Missing Persons Unit, who brought it to the notice of the program's producers.

The sisters saw the program as an opportunity to appeal to Veronica to make contact.

"We are regular people, we don't have limitless funds to get a private detective to go and search for Mum," says Green-McNeilly. "(The program) offers us so much access and exposure."

One of the aims of the program, says executive producer Ivo Burum, is to increase awareness of missing people and help police with their profiles. The producers routinely brief Crime Stoppers before each episode airs.

Often people are found before the program is broadcast (according to statistics, 99.5 per cent of the 30,000 Australians that go missing each year are found), but that doesn't blunt the show's overriding message, says Burum.

"The devastation caused when someone goes missing is quite amazing.

"It's a tough thing to deal with; it's the worst sort of loss because there's no closure," he says. "I've heard Penny say on a few occasions that's the real problem here, that every day you keep thinking 'where is Mum?'

"You don't know if it's a tragedy - and that's the tragedy. That's what the girls face all the time."

The sisters' story highlights another element of the missing person's lot. It isn't a crime to leave an unhappy home. It may even be wise, especially if one's safety and wellbeing are at risk.

"Life was tough for her when she left," says Wright. "She worked full-time, Dad was hard work, the relationship was tumultuous, fiery. She was at the end of her tether when she left."

Veteran journalist Mike Munro, who narrates Missing Persons Unit, sympathises with those who see no option but to flee, particularly when it involves child abuse.

But, he cautions, "very few of them say 'I'm going away, leave me alone, I'm safe and well and want to start a new life'. Most of them just disappear and leave behind a family, never really knowing whether they're alive, dead, maimed, whatever.

"Everyone over 21 is an adult and has the right to go off and start a new life for whatever reason, no matter how misguided it may be, but I think they should at least not leave desperation and calamity behind them."

Since the sisters' story aired last year there's been a remarkable twist. They have tracked down an older brother they never knew, who lives in northern NSW. What's more, he is a full brother, born before their parents married and, as was common for the times, given up for adoption.

They have since been reunited, but the search for Veronica continues.