LBT Global was the UK’s only charity helping to find missing Brits abroad, like Jay Slater, and now they’ve had to let go of so many services after a desperate plea for funding, leaving families are stranded in silence
When a British citizen goes missing overseas, support is scarce, and for years, there was only one charity that stepped in to help – LBT Global, formerly known as the Lucie Blackman Trust.
The charity has since rebranded as Safe Harbour, but was forced to cut back vital services, leaving families with missing relatives stranded in silence. “People always tell us they’d never heard of us, until they need us,” CEO Matthew Searle told the Mirror, “and sometimes, they find us too late.”
The charity was founded in 2006, following the disappearance of British national Lucie Blackman, who went missing in Tokyo in July 2000. At the time, her father, Tim, described the feeling of “complete blind panic” when you hear a loved one has gone missing abroad.
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With barely any options in the UK, Tim flew out to Japan and worked tirelessly to rally public support, holding press conferences, befriending journalists and pushing for international coverage. Despite his efforts, it still took seven agonising months to find Lucie’s body.
Joji Obara, a Japanese-Korean businessman became the lead suspect in her disappearance. He admitted to meeting Lucie, but denied harming her. Her body was later found using sniffer dogs and radar in a cave near his home.
In 2007, Obara, a serial rapist, was jailed for life over other rape cases, but not Lucie’s, due to lack of forensic evidence. The decision was later overturned, and he was found guilty of abducting, dismembering and disposing of Lucie’s body.
A year prior, Lucie’s father Tim had accepted a “condolence payment” of 100 million yen (£503 million) from associates of Obara. Tim put the money into a trust in her name, with a mission to help young people travel safely.
“Nothing I do is going to change what happened. Nothing will bring Lucie back. My responsibility now is for the living,” he told The Guardian at the time.
While Lucie’s family have since stepped away from the charity, Safe Harbour (LBT Global) has played a vital role for families with loved ones missing abroad.
The disappearance of Gary Burns
Terry Burns, 44, who described Safe Harbour as “absolute angels” thanks to their efforts in helping his family when his brother, Gary Burns went missing. Gary was 38 when he went missing in Turkey in August 2016.
Terry told The Mirror that when police contact dried up, it wasn’t official channels that kept Gary’s name alive, it was Safe Harbour.
“They were the ones still trying to put the story out there,” Terry said. “Keeping his name relevant and seen. I couldn’t imagine it [without the charity],” he added. “Before this, I didn’t even know they existed.”
Months prior to his disappearance, Gary appeared to be thriving. He’d moved to Turkey for a fresh start, after he suffered with depression in the UK. His move abroad helped his mindset change for the better.
“He was a completely different person, he was back to being Gary,” Terry told us. Gary became one of the locals and was popular among his neighbours. When his friends from home visited Turkey, he loved giving them a tour of the area.
Gary was last seen by his family in early August 2016, when his sister, Danielle, was visiting Turkey. It was then she noticed a change as Gary had told her that he wasn’t getting paid from the bar he worked at. According to Terry, he told Danielle: “Once I get paid I’m leaving the job.”
But alarm bells started ringing when one of Gary’s friends returned from Turkey and said she hadn’t seen him. The family knew something was wrong and posted on social media to see if anyone had seen him.
In the months that followed, the silence only grew, as did the pressure to act. Terry and his family were in contact with the Foreign Office as well as the Turkish authorities, but received no answers about the circumstances around Gary’s disappearance.
The family kept pushing on their own, with the support of Safe Harbour, running the “Find Gary Burns” Facebook page, writing letters to MPs, and trying to track down anyone who might know something. Terry said that Gary’s passport has “never been used, so you know he’s still in that country.”
“To not know leaves you in limbo. You can’t grieve properly because you just don’t know,” Terry said. “We know he’s gone. You don’t go missing for nine years. I know him too well, he wouldn’t just vanish. My mum’s a pensioner now… she’s going to die not knowing where her son is.”
Even now, with search efforts fading and no clear resolution, the work hasn’t stopped. Another charity, Missing People, have stepped in in Safe Harbour’s stead to post appeals for Gary on birthdays and anniversaries. Even though the charity offers emotional support to families in the UK, they mainly work with loved ones missing domestically.
Safe Harbour once filled that gap, by supporting UK families with people missing overseas often providing practical support – like repatriation, cross-border police contact, paperwork, press, and more – during the most traumatic moments.
What happened to Safe Harbour?
In December 2024, Safe Harbour posted a message on Facebook, explaining that their appeal for donations had failed, leaving the charity with no choice but to pause services, such as help for murder or manslaughter cases overseas.
They revealed further cuts in support when a child is taken overseas against the will of the legal guardian and stopped posting public appeals on social media, as they were “rarely successful” and often fell victim to “trolls and armchair detectives.”
“We must consider the families,” the statement read. “Every family we support is understandably glued to every comment, and some are disgusting, defamatory, delusional but always, always hurtful. It’s not fair to put anyone through this.”
As of 2025, the charity’s CEO has explained they need another £70,000 a year. “We’ve lost so many donations because the charitable trust that used to support us are doing much more work [at] home [rather] than overseas,” Searle told The Mirror. “[This has] always been a difficult charity to get funding for.”
“If I ask you for £20 to buy a child a Christmas present, you’ll give it but if I ask you for £20 to help find a 53-year-old missing person in Thailand, you probably won’t. It makes it a very difficult charity to fundraise for,” he added.
Due to funding cuts, the team has downsized and find themselves unable to financially support families, like Gary’s, as they once did. Safe Harbour helped the family of Jay Slater, a Lancashire teenager who vanished in Tenerife last summer while on his first trip abroad with friends and was found dead almost a month later after suffering a fatal mountain fall.
Within days of Jay’s disappearance, Safe Harbour were actively helping his family by offering not only emotional support, but also trying to minimise harm caused by “vile comments” and online misinformation. Following confirmation of Jay’s death, the charity reportedly helped with repatriating his body and managing paperwork, easing the burden for the Slater family at a devastating time.
While the charity acknowledges the current cost of living crisis, it has noticed a dramatic decline in the amount of direct debit donations it receives. Although they have a new funding arrangement with the Foreign Office, this funding only only covers missing people until the point the person is located.
“A huge amount of the work we used to do was when we’d locate someone, and that person might be deceased, in hospital, or very ill but we don’t have the funding to do that anymore.”
The tragedy is not just in the disappearances themselves, but in the slow vanishing of the very systems built to help. For the families left behind in Safe Harbour’s absence, the support that once helped them navigate their darkest days may now be gone.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Searle told us. “We’re having to turn down people that we would’ve helped before, but if we don’t [turn them away], we won’t have the ability to help the ones we’ve [already] funded to help and then risk helping nobody.”
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For families like Gary’s, who are still searching, the loss of Safe Harbour’s services is more than heartbreaking – it’s a warning. Without this vital support, others may face the same devastating silence, but without the guidance and care that once helped so many endure it. We’re left with a pressing question: Who will help them now?
To donate and support Safe Harbour in bringing vital services back, see this link lbt-global.raisely.com
The Mirror is using its platform to launch Missed – a campaign to shine a light on underrepresented public-facing missing persons in the UK in collaboration with Missing People Charity. Because every missing person, no matter their background or circumstances, is someone’s loved one. And they are always Missed.
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