‘My wife is missing in Greece... when I told the waiter he laughed'

Telegraph

2 days ago

The husband of a British woman who is missing in Greece has claimed a waiter laughed at him when he asked for help.
Michele Ann Joy Bourda, 59, vanished while Chris Bourda, 66, was sleeping on a sunbed on Ofrynio beach near Kavala on Aug 1.
Mr Bourda has hit out at the Greek police for their lack of urgency in searching for his wife who has now been missing for more than a week.
Speaking from Greece, the pharmacist told the Daily Mail they went for a swim in the sea together, ate crêpes at a cafe and he then fell asleep on a lounger on the beach.
'When I woke up she wasn't there,' he said. 'I quickly ran to the toilet and knocked on the ladies but she wasn't in there. I then ran to the beach to look again in the water.
'I then quickly went back to the waiter to say my wife was missing, have you seen her and he started laughing.'
He said it was only after he said his wife had 'psychological problems' that the barman realised how serious the situation was.
Mr Bourda said his wife, who had worked for BT and then at a local council, had suffered from depression and anxiety for a number of years.
But he claimed that the police did not arrive at the scene for another two hours and 'didn't do anything' on the first day his wife went missing.
'Days and nights'
Mr Bourda also claimed that the search boat was only being used either very early in the morning or at night, so as not to 'disturb or concern the tourists'.
'I have been searching without sleep or anything,' he continued.
'Day and night, especially early in the morning. It was hard to see at night though as it was so dark.
'For days and nights I have gone up and down the coast, searched bushes, olive groves, empty houses, building sites, later I went to the hills, nothing.'
The couple live in Glasgow, but Mr Bourda said she previously went missing in London in 2020.
Some witnesses have claimed they saw a woman matching her description swimming in deep water, while another claimed to have seen her walking away from the scene.
Lifeline Hellas, a Greek missing persons charity, issued an alert on Saturday after the police were unable to find Mrs Bourda.
The charity's alert said: 'Her life is in danger. If you know anything, contact the Silver Alert service, 24 hours a day, at the national SOS line 1065.'