Five years ago Matthew Green told his parents he was going to Mile End in London for the weekend to see a friend.

Little did they know it was the last time they would see him.

“I never thought we’d be in this situation,” said mum Pauline.

“I thought six months after he’d gone he’d come home but there’s still no news. The living in limbo, it’s never ending.”

The then 26-year-old was last seen at the family home in Rock Road, Sittingbourne, at 8pm on April 8, 2010.

When he didn’t return, his disappearance was reported to police.

A search of the self-employed roofer’s personal items revealed he had taken his passport, birth certificate, driving licence, bank card, about £1,700 in cash and a card which allows him to work on construction sites. His mobile phone was left behind.

To mark the anniversary of his disappearance the charity Missing People featured a picture and write up of Matt in this week’s Big Issue and on digital billboards across the country, in the hope he, or someone who knows him, would get in touch and end his family’s torment.

Mrs Green, 61, added: “In my heart he’s alive, he’s out there somewhere he always will be until someone proves to me 100% different to that. They’ll carry me off in a box before I stop looking for him.

“I love him, I miss him. I don’t want to bring him home if he doesn’t want to come home I just need to know he’s OK. We try to carry on as normal as best we can.

“We’ve gone over and over it so many times like when he walked out the house did he get a lift at the bottom of the road, did he walk to the station and get a train?”

To date his bank account has not been touched and his passport has not been used.

She said: “The police looked into people on the ferries and Eurostar and there were three Matthew Greens on the Eurostar either the day he went missing or the day after.

"One of them was German but none of them were Matt."

“Had he turned around and said this is the score, I want to try my luck and my future somewhere else I’d have accepted that, it’s part of growing up and fleeing the nest but he didn’t and that’s the hardest bit to bear.”

Dad Jim, 62, a retired Sittingbourne firefighter, said: “It doesn’t get any easier.

"It’s still sleepless nights, you still worry ‘is he OK has he got a roof over his head?’ He may well have settled down, he may have his own kiddies we just don’t know, that’s the biggest thing - not knowing.”