THE MOTHER of murdered student midwife Joy Morgan has told BBC Radio 5 Live the media didn’t give her daughter’s disappearance any attention because her family is black.

Carol Morgan’s daughter Joy was reported missing in February.

Earlier this month, Shohfah-El Israel was convicted of murdering the 20-year-old, even though Joy’s body has never been found.

In an impassioned interview with BBC Radio 5 Live’s Chris Warburton, Carol Morgan says animal stories were given more attention than her missing child.

She said: “The heart of the matter is why wasn’t my black Rastafarian face on the TV doing a press conference sitting with police officers on either side?

“I paid my taxes, I paid my TV licence. It’s because I was black and I wasn’t newsworthy.

“Do you hear me people? Because my daughter was black and because I was black I was not newsworthy. I’m a single mum and black mother at that. Maybe it’s a different procedure for us? Because that’s how I see it.

“Why is it you reporters fail to pick up the news of black people when it comes to them being missing?

“If my daughter had been out there with a knife, a gun, a weapon, I would have sat in my house and seen her on TV. I would have seen my daughter within minutes.

“But because my daughter was a university student from Hertfordshire, she was a nobody.

Ms Morgan added: “I’ve seen stories about a whale caught in the Thames getting front page news. But where did you see my daughter’s news?

“The police did a fantastic absolutely 100 percent job to find that man, but they were failed by newspapers and reporting services because you did not promote my daughter.“

Asked how the situation could be changed, Ms Morgan said: “people need to get off thinking that black people are only shown in the worst light. The only thing you notice about us [is] when we are causing problems.”

Media commentator Roy Greenslade, Honorary Visiting Professor in Journalism at City University in London, said Ms Morgan was highlighting an important issue. He said the media “need to question their own decision making…. The media is still white…. there are no black editors in national newspapers and very few in local newspapers. I’m afraid prejudice goes on when people are not thinking about it. You will only find a change here when you find a change in the make-up of the media itself.”

Joy Morgan’s body still hasn’t been found.

The interview can be heard in full here – https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0007rfr at 11:05 onwards