DESPITE his "Jack-the-Lad" reputation, David Guilfoyle had a close relationship with his teenage daughter.

Sammy Feeley, 16, saw her dad every week and had been due to stay with him on the night he disappeared.

But she had been unable to go because she had been off school with a cold.

In July last year, Sammy, a pupil at Hollins Technology College, bravely faced the media to make an appeal to the public help find him.

She said: "I stayed with my dad every Wednesday night but that night I was unable to go as I had been poorly. I keep thinking whether my dad would still be here if I had stayed as usual that night and I get really upset.

"I miss him so much and think about him constantly. Since he went missing, I have an ache inside that just won't go away.

"I just want him to come back and to tell him that I love him."

In a statement to the police after her dad had gone missing Sammy said she rang him most nights at 6pm and sometimes went with him when he went to play pool in pubs.

They would also go to the cinema and for meals when they spent time together.

Mr Guilfoyle met Sammy's mum Angela on Christmas Eve 1988. They quite quickly moved in together at his parents' house.

She became pregnant, but they broke up in December 1989.

Sammy was born in March 1990, but Mr Guilfoyle did not have any contact with her until 1994.

Angela had to break the news to Sammy that her dad had been reported missing.

She told police that she had arranged to ring him the day after he was last seen, but his phone went straight to answer phone, which was something that had never happened before.

Sammy said: "I didn't know where my dad might have gone to because he didn't have any plans to go away."