On top of that, they were told that an investigator for the News of the World newspaper had eavesdropped on the mobile phone of their “happy, friendly, vivacious” teenaged daughter after she’d gone missing, and that he’d deleted messages from her mailbox, giving them false hope that she might be alive.
This week, instead of being able to retreat to their home to recover from the trial that gave Milly’s killer a life sentence, they’ve become unlikely avengers for reform of major institutions of British life: press, politics and the justice system.