We fear our Ricky has been murdered
Ricky Harris' family have not seen or heard from him for more than a year and now they've received a disturbing message
Ricky Harris was last seen in November 2023
The family of a missing man fear he has 'been murdered' as they approach 20 months with no answers. Ricky Harris, from Aberdare, was last seen on CCTV at around 2.20pm on Saturday, November 18, 2023. The footage, taken from near his flat at Maes-Y-Deri, Aberaman, was captured just hours after his aunt, Nina Harris, dropped him home from a friend's house.
Speaking to WalesOnline previously, Nina said Ricky seemed like his usual self that day, however she noted it was strange for him to have requested a lift for what should have been a five-minute walk. She added that Ricky 'looked shifty or nervous' when she reviewed CCTV footage of their last interaction.
Now 19 months on since her nephew's disappearance Nina has revealed that the family received a disturbing letter which alleges that Ricky has been murdered.
The letter, seen by WalesOnline, suggests a location where Ricky has been 'buried under gravel'.
The letter was not intended for Ricky's family but was passed on by someone who felt they had a 'right to know', Nina claimed.
Ricky Harris has been missing for nearly 20 months
(Image: Nina Harris )
Article continues below
Nina said she received it just short of a year ago, but claimed police had not taken it seriously.
'We've had this letter for the last 10 months but the police have ignored it,' she said. 'When I read it my heart sank. Seeing it written down is more than a verbal rumour.
"The police said they would speak to [the person referred to in the letter] but that [they were unable] to speak to them.
'At first we had a little bit of hope, but we are speaking out now because it has been so long since we received the letter.
'I'm not just going to sit back and leave him missing, I want him found. I have been constantly ringing for updates and I'm sick of calling 101, I'm sick of arguing with the police. It's a shambles.'
For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
Ricky with his aunt Nina Harris
(Image: Supplied by Nina Harris )
Further to this, she said the family is concerned that officers had not yet obtained permission to access Ricky's social media accounts to check for potential evidence.
She said: 'It's been 20 months now and they haven't even looked into Ricky's Facebook account. I know this because they told me.
'If someone is [being investigated] for a drugs offence the first thing they do is get on their Facebook account but when someone is missing, why not? They don't know what messages he sent or received before he went missing. That should have been done at the very beginning.'
Recalling the last time she saw Ricky, she said: 'That day I just knew something wasn't right. When you know someone and know their ways, you can just tell.
'It is very out of character for Ricky to go missing; he doesn't go and wander, he is a home bird.
'A week before he had pneumonia and they took a litre of fluid off his lungs. On the Monday before he went missing he signed himself out of hospital.
'[At the time] the police said he could have walked off and collapsed somewhere, but if that happened, he would have likely been found now. They said we need to keep all options open and not just assume he is dead.'
Nina said Ricky is 'so missed'
(Image: Supplied by Nina Harris )
Nina said the family also continue to be tormented by prank calls and 'twisted' people using fake social media accounts claiming to be withholding information about Ricky's whereabouts.
She said as a family they believe he is dead, and fear he has been 'murdered'.
She said: 'It's devastating as a family and we believe the outcome [is that he is dead] but he deserves to have a proper funeral. I'm still awake until silly times in the morning. I wake up and I can't get it out of my head. It's just crazy.
'You think of all sorts, did he suffer? Was it sudden? Someone evil knows something and they're not speaking up.'
She added: 'He is so missed and loved it is unreal, it's heartbreaking and cruel. At the end of the day he's someone's son and he's my nephew, and I'll do anything I've got to do to find him.'
Detective Inspector Owain Morris said: 'South Wales Police is actively pursuing a detailed and comprehensive investigation into the disappearance of Ricky Harris.
'Since Ricky's disappearance, we have conducted extensive searches utilising our Specialist Search officers, which includes specialised units such as the dive team, dog scent teams, and support from the police helicopter (NPAS) and drone teams.
"The investigation has reached beyond local boundaries, with inquiries extending as far as North Wales.
'Officers are continually reviewing any new information that emerges, ensuring that all leads are thoroughly examined. Every reported sighting and tip-off from the public has been diligently followed up, and all practical and reasonable physical search opportunities have been explored to the best of their capabilities.
"This includes thorough examinations of numerous locations, such as rivers, waterways, and areas of dense vegetation.
'I would like to emphasise that the investigation remains ongoing, and we are committed in our efforts to locate Ricky. Ricky's family have been kept updated on all developments related to the search for him.'
Get daily breaking news updates on your phone by joining our WhatsApp community here . We occasionally treat members to special offers, promotions and ads from us and our partners. See our Privacy Notice
Article continues below
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South Wales Argus
22 minutes ago
- South Wales Argus
Thousands being relocated to UK after personal data leak of Afghans
A dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) was released 'in error' in February 2022 by a defence official. The breach resulted in the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme – the Afghanistan Response Route – in April 2024. The scheme is understood to have cost around £400 million so far, with a projected cost once completed of around £850 million. Millions more is expected to be paid in legal costs and compensation. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) only became aware of the breach over a year after the release, when excerpts of the dataset were anonymously posted onto a Facebook group in August 2023.
Glasgow Times
22 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Thousands being relocated to UK after personal data leak of Afghans
A dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) was released 'in error' in February 2022 by a defence official. The breach resulted in the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme – the Afghanistan Response Route – in April 2024. The scheme is understood to have cost around £400 million so far, with a projected cost once completed of around £850 million. Millions more is expected to be paid in legal costs and compensation. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) only became aware of the breach over a year after the release, when excerpts of the dataset were anonymously posted onto a Facebook group in August 2023.
The Independent
29 minutes ago
- The Independent
Inside the secret scramble to save lives after MoD data breach
In February 2022, sitting in an office not far from the Ministry of Defence 's Whitehall HQ, a member of the armed forces pressed 'send' on two emails. Two emails that would spark one of the most extraordinary secret government operations in modern history over fears 100,000 lives were in danger. They would lead to an unprecedented gagging order on the British press through a superinjunction, claims that parliament was being misled and the largest covert evacuation in UK peacetime, projected to cost the taxpayer billions. In the wake of the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, tens of thousands of Afghans at risk of reprisals for fighting with British troops had asked the UK to bring them and their families to safety. Six months on, an 80-strong MoD team was working through the difficult task of assessing these applications, deciding if they should be approved or denied on the strength of their ties to UK forces. This serviceman thought his Afghan contacts might be able to help establish who was eligible for help and who was not. He decided to email the database, containing 33,000 records and the details of more than 18,000 Afghan applicants and their loved ones, to trusted sources. He pressed send twice, apparently unaware of the full extent of the amount of data he was sending because of hidden rows within the spreadsheet. Only today, after a nearly two-year legal battle involving the country's most prominent judges and media organisations – including The Independent – can the astonishing story of what happened next finally be told. Scramble It was on 14 August 2023, sixteen months after the spreadsheet was shared, that the crisis began for the government. On that day, an anonymous member of a Facebook group, set up for people applying to resettlement schemes created by the UK government, wrote a post claiming to be in possession of a database with 33,000 records on it. 'What do you think?' the person posted, asking the 1,300 members whether they should share the details. They were challenged to prove they had access to the information. When they replied with a screenshot of the database, as well as contact details of a person who had applied to relocate to the UK, another member raised the alarm. The scramble began. The incident was instantly reported to the joint MoD and Foreign Office relocations team in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital where hundreds of Afghan families were being housed in hotels by the UK government while waiting to move them to Britain. There, the team sent a Whatsapp message to around 1,800 people, warning their contact information may have been compromised by a data incident. According to an independent caseworker supporting Afghans with sanctuary applications, then secretary of state for defence Ben Wallace, MI6, the CIA and the FCDO were informed of the breach 'within minutes'. The next day, this same caseworker emailed then armed forces minister James Heappey and then shadow minister Luke Pollard, describing the situation as 'simply bone-chilling'. 'The Taliban may well now have a 33,000-long kill list – essentially provided to them by the UK government. If any of these families are murdered, the government will be liable,' they wrote. Minutes after that email was sent at 9.57am, the breach was reported to the resettlement team in London, with an urgent meeting taking place at 3pm. By just after 8pm, the senior MoD leadership team had been informed. A crisis team called Gold Group was set up the following day, with the response to be dubbed Operation Rubific. With the scale of the leak becoming apparent, the MoD also informed the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK's data protection watchdog, the deputy national security advisor and the Metropolitan Police. The MoD has not confirmed whether the serviceman faced any disciplinary action for the accidental leak or if he is still employed by the government. Unprecedented superinjunction The breach itself included names of those who had applied under the resettlement schemes, as well as dates of birth, email addresses and phone numbers. The majority of the applicants were based in Afghanistan and had already been deemed ineligible for the UK's resettlement schemes. But more than 2,000 people eligible for relocation were also on the list. By mid August, two media outlets – The Daily Mail and Global Media – knew about the story. Keen to ensure the information spread no further while it took steps to protect those named in the leak, the MoD sought a four-month injunction in court. The MoD's acting gold commander, Nina Cope, claimed there was an 'escalating possibility' that the information could be published widely and that it might reach the Taliban. Government lawyers deemed it 'very unlikely' that the MoD would ask for a further extension of the injunction. But, at a hearing on 1 September 2023, a High Court judge, Mr Justice Knowles, went a step further and offered an unprecedented contra mundum superinjunction. The strict legal order meant no one would be able to share a sliver of information about the subject of the injunction – or, remarkably, even speak about the injunction itself. But signs were still emerging that knowledge of the leak had not been contained. The MoD became aware of rumours of a list and would later assess that some 'Taliban-aligned individuals' might be aware of a dataset. Some Arap applicants had also contacted the MoD saying they believed their data had been compromised, while campaigners in regular contact with the MoD were also highlighting cases of intimidation, unusual calls and instances of Taliban members turning up at people's homes. A not-so-secret evacuation Having been given unprecedented power to gag the press and operate in secret by the courts, the MoD had to find a way to keep the Afghans who had been identified safe. In the early stages, the MoD considered telling more of those affected about the leak so they could take steps to protect themselves. It would inevitably decide against this, taking the view it might help the Taliban find out about the breach. Instead, MoD caseworkers were instructed to speed up decision-making on Afghans implicated in the leak and bring them to safety – a move that has ultimately delayed help for other eligible Afghans desperate to flee their country. By October 2023, the MoD told the court that this work was happening 'at pace' but it expected relocations to take until at least the end of February. Officials still had no idea how many people they would need to help. The following month, ministers decided to relocate a 'targeted cohort' of just 150 high-risk individuals and their family members to the UK. It was this move that sparked The Independent's involvement in the case with journalist Holly Bancroft injuncted as she investigated why some applicants were suddenly being granted relocation. While the High Court judge now in charge of the case, Mr Justice Chamberlain, had initially sought to give the MoD time to act, he was growing impatient with the lack of evidence from the government to back up its assertions, and there were fears from ministers he could lift the injunction entirely if more people were not helped. At a later hearing in February 2025, the judge explained his thinking: 'You can put up with uncertainty for a while… but you start to wonder – do you have anything more to back this up?' The government settled on a plan to bring the Afghans to the UK in large numbers, but it was still facing a major problem – how do you evacuate thousands of people from Afghanistan to the UK without anyone noticing? Civil servants came up with a plan to 'provide cover' for the numbers arriving. A brief was prepared by defence secretary John Healey for a meeting of the home economics affairs committee – involving cabinet ministers including chancellor Rachel Reeves, deputy PM Angela Rayner and home secretary Yvette Cooper – in October 2024, outlining how the government intended to cover up what was happening. Mr Healey proposed a new Afghan resettlement scheme, merging the two existing schemes to create the Afghan Resettlement Programme (ARP). It would aim to evacuate around 36,000 people, 28,500 of whom would be affected by the data leak, at a cost of up to £7.23bn. By its own admission, the government's secret scheme came at a time when the UK's asylum system was 'under significant strain'. By June this year, the number of people it aimed to resettle had increased to 42,572. According to the plan, families would spend up to nine months in accommodation including hotels and military homes, with settled housing such as council properties provided after that. Half of arrivals would be found somewhere to live, while 40 per cent would privately rent, the MoD estimated. But around 10 per cent could end up homeless. A compensation scheme for those left behind in Afghanistan was also planned. Mr Justice Chamberlain highlighted the huge magnitude of spending on a supposedly secret plan, asking the court: 'Am I going bonkers?' He added: 'It is not actually possible to disappear it down the back of a sofa.' In order to deliver the plan successfully, Mr Healey advised that the government needed to 'engage meaningfully' with local authorities and devolved governments about the scale and timing of the plan. Crucially, however, MPs, local councils and the public would not be told the true reason behind the surge in numbers of Afghans arriving in the UK. The government needed to 'maintain control of the narrative', the brief added, by giving a statement to parliament laying out 'the scale (but not the cause) of the challenge'. Ministers agreed. At the next court hearing on 11 November 2024, Mr Justice Chamberlain was left to confront the fact that the government planned to withhold highly significant information from parliament. He told the private hearing: 'To see… that a statement in parliament is going to be made to provide cover for something is a very very striking thing.' Jude Bunting KC, on behalf of the media organisations, put to Mr Justice Chamberlain that 'the government is going to deliberately mislead parliament and the public'. The judge replied: 'That's territory we can't get into, but the word 'cover' is particularly striking.' On 18 December 2024, Mr Healey announced the new scheme. Though he said it was for eligible Afghans, the defence secretary crucially did not explain what they were eligible for. Media organisations were then left to report the government's statement – unable, due to the terms of the injunction, to tell readers the truth until now. In a witness statement Dominic Wilson, a senior civil servant in the Cabinet Office, said press interest in the announcement had 'not been significant'. The superinjunction unravels In spring 2025, a new strand was added to the ever-expanding court case. A Manchester-based legal firm, Barings Law, told the government it was instructing 667 potential clients, 154 of whom were in Afghanistan, in relation to compensation over the data breach. With news that hundreds more Afghans knew about a leak, and with the expanding number of media organisations listed as defendants, it was clear the government's case was falling apart. By a hearing on 20 February 2025, ministers had decided to conduct a review of their whole approach to the data breach, asking a retired civil servant to analyse what risk named Afghans faced as a result of the leak. The MoD had maintained throughout the case that it was unable to carry out an investigation for fear of spreading the information protected by their own injunction and alerting the Taliban, so news that the government could review these matters after all came as a surprise to the judge. Mr Justice Chamberlain asked: 'If this is a manageable risk now, why hasn't it been done to date?' The review, carried out by Paul Rimmer, ex-deputy head of defence intelligence, drew on interviews with numerous experts, some of whom knew about the facts of the injunction. It found that, while killings and other reprisals against former Afghan officials do occur, being identified on the dataset was unlikely to be sole grounds for targeting. The Taliban already has access to 'significant volumes of data' to help identify targets, it said. It added that knowledge of a data breach had spread but the actual database had not been shared as widely as initially feared. In another extraordinary conclusion, the government's review found that creating a bespoke scheme and using an unprecedented superinjunction may have 'inadvertently added more value' to the dataset for the Taliban. The cost and scale of the evacuation 'may perpetuate a perception that the dataset provides information of considerably higher value that this review judges it to in reality', it concluded. Lifting the injunction on Tuesday, Mr Justice Chamberlain said the conclusions of the review 'fundamentally undermine the evidential basis' on which the injunction, and the decisions to maintain it, have relied. Break glass In anticipation of the injunction falling away – an event referred to as the 'break glass' moment – ministers decided the original resettlement schemes should be closed because they risked being overwhelmed by a 'significant spike' of people wanting help. On 1 July, without warning, the government quietly closed all existing schemes under immigration rule changes laid in parliament. Journalists were again left to report on the closure of the scheme without being able to explain the true motivations. In light of the review, the MoD also told the court Mr Healey had decided to end the dataleak evacuation programme (ARR) and recommended the injunction be discharged. It is now taking steps to inform people that their information has been breached and will set up a dedicated information page. Incredibly, the MoD has also planned for a risk of riots when the government's secret mission to bring thousands of Afghans into the country is revealed to the public. The government has told the court that more than 16,000 people affected by the data breach have been brought to the UK – believed to be the largest covert evacuation in peacetime history. A further 5,400 are yet to arrive but have been offered relocation. Of that total of more than 21,000, some 4,500 would not have been eligible to come to the UK and have been evacuated solely because of the leak. The MoD estimates the total cost for this group alone will reach £800m. The rest have all been found eligible under the Arap scheme, though officials acknowledge their cases were prioritised and, in some instances, reassessed. Though many Afghans have been brought to safety, the majority have been left behind – only now allowed to know about the danger they have been put in by the leak. They have been left to fend for themselves, in fear of their lives, with any other legal route to the UK now closed. As one Afghan father of three, who wrote to the MoD after discovering the data breach, said: 'We are miraculously still alive due to our wit and pure luck, but it is like we are evolving in an open tomb. We are forced to always change places, and I never thought we'd one day face starvation but it happens. We pray that you understand what some of us go through, and that you make this unfair nightmare stop'.
