On Tuesday, April 14, at 2pm, Marian and John Buckley sat in a strange room full of unfamiliar faces in a different country. It was there, at a press conference at Glasgow Police headquarters in Govan, that they pleaded for the safe return of their daughter.

While the sun shone brightly on a rural community in Co Cork, there was a cloud of anxiety hanging over locals yesterday as they tuned into news bulletins in the hope missing Karen Buckley would be found safe and well many miles away in Glasgow.