Full list: NSW long-term missing persons on AFP registry

More than 2500 people are among the long-term missing cases in Australia. As part of Missing Persons Week 2023, we take a look at people from NSW who remain unaccounted for.

These are the faces representing heartache across an entire state.

NSW currently has 320 people named on the Australian Federal Police’s list of missing persons, all leaving behind tales of anguish for family and friends.

Missing Persons Week 2023 (from July 30 to August 5) is a national campaign focusing on missing and long-term missing people.

“This year’s national Missing Persons Week focuses on unidentified human remains cases across the country,” NSW Police said.

Bradford Pholi is one of the names on the list, disappearing in 1982 when he was 10. He has not been seen since.

SEE THE FULL LIST OF NSW’S MISSING PERSONS BELOW

DISAPPEARANCE OF BRADFORD PHOLI

It is Boxing Day, 1982, and a young boy jumps the back fence of his Dundas Valley home to scurry off to Eastwood station — he is on a mission to borrow money from his aunty for his mother, Lorna.

Minutes later his brother Bernie, then 11, goes after him, but Bradford Pholi is never seen again.

The disappearance of the 10-year-old boy with pearly white teeth, dark brown eyes and brown hair, resulted in the early death of his mother and a spiralling battle with substance abuse for his siblings.

Bradford Pholi went missing in 1982.

Bernie Pholi spoke in August 2018 about the day his young brother decided to catch a train to Newtown to help out his mother, after he and his sister Anita, then 13, refused her request.

“We couldn’t borrow any money off anyone here, we just moved here,” Mr Pholi said.

“I didn’t want to go, it was Boxing Day. I was playing with my toys. And then she asked Bradford and Bradford goes, ‘I’ll go for you mum’.”

LISTEN TO THE MISSING PODCAST BELOW:

Mr Pholi said he pleaded with his brother not to leave the family home at 51 Warwick Rd, Dundas Valley, but little could be done to stop him.

Bradford Pholi’s sibling Anita Pholi in 2018 shows the route her brother would have taken behind their family home on the day he disappeared. Picture: Jake McCallum

“I felt guilty so I jumped over the fence five minutes later to go after him,” he said.

“He was gone, he was already gone.”

Bernie in 2018 spoke of how the incident changed the family forever.

“Me and my sister have never been the same since, it’s destroyed our lives,” Mr Pholi said.

“My mum died (in 1986) and for two years she went looking for him. She used to go up and down the Cross, down the city. She used to go looking for him, two nights, every time she got paid a pension.”

In 2009 a NSW coroner ruled Bradford had been murdered, but his mother was cleared of any involvement.

There remains a $100,000 for any information regarding the disappearance.

Originally published as Full list: NSW long-term missing persons on AFP registry