BIRTHDAYS and anniversaries come and go, and still Melanie's family cannot move on with their lives not knowing where their little girl went.

Steve Hall retired from his post as deputy principal at Gwent College in Wales since her disappearance. He is now the Chairman of Bath City Football Club and has thrown himself into his work and hobbies in recent years to keep his mind off what fate could have befallen his youngest daughter.

Mr Hall said: "Knowing her as I do and knowing her relationship with myself, my wife Pat and the rest of the family, I can only surmise she possibly met someone and something awful happened."

When she first disappeared, her mother carried a silver cross and chain that Melanie always wore but which broke a week before she disappeared.

In all the press briefings and public appeals the family have made an increasingly desperate bid to solve the mystery of their daughter's whereabouts, the poignant picture of Melanie on her graduation day is never far away.

Mr Hall said: "The thing that I look at most is her certificate for her degree which sits on the shelf at home. It represents two things. It represents four years of hard work but it also represents unfulfilled potential."

Both parents said the not knowing was making their life unbearable.

Mr Hall said: "It is possible she met with some psycho-killer who was stalking the streets of Bath but I think that is highly unlikely.

"She has gone with someone she feels reasonable comfortable with or someone with a reputation of authority and something went terribly wrong or led to a terrible accident."

In an interview on the anniversary of her disappearance last year, her father said her case had touched everyone.

He said when he walked in the street, strangers would give him a concerned smile, knowing automatically who he was, and the pain he was going through.

Melanie's sister, Dominique, described her younger sister as a pretty, intelligent, self-assured woman with a promising career.

On the weekend of Melanie's disappearance, Dominique had been visiting her partner's family in Kent.

She said: "We came back quite late on the Sunday.

"Mel's car was not on the drive and I just assumed she was at her boyfriend's house staying over for the weekend and didn't think any more of it.

"It was not until I had a phone call at work saying Melanie had not turned up for work that day and nobody had heard why, that I was immediately concerned. It was not like her."

Melanie lived at home while at university and met a former boyfriend while studying at Bath.

They shared a rented house in Bradford on Avon before separating a few months before she disappeared, when Melanie moved back into the family home in Bradford Leigh.

Dominique said the parting was amicable and the former boyfriend was very concerned about what had happened.

Melanie had been planning to move into a new house in Bath when she disappeared.

Dominique said: "Dad bought a house in Oldfield Park and she was planning to move in when he had finished doing some of the decoration."

Since the investigation was scaled down in the spring of 1997, Melanie's family have had to get on with their lives as best they can.

Mr Hall said: "When there was a lot of police activity it had the effect of keeping her alive. We would like to know what has happened and we want her to be found because we would then have something to come to terms with.

"I think there is a woman out there somewhere, a mother, a daughter, a wife, who suspects their partner, husband or son and they could do something to help.

"Our message to that person is they have the ability to help Dominique, Pat and myself rebuild the rest of our lives."