VIDEO: Touching birthday tribute to missing Costa del Sol girl Amy Fitzpatrick

THE FATHER of Amy Fitzpatrick, the Irish girl who disappeared on the Costa del Sol ten-years-ago, has paid a touching tribute to her.

Dad, Christopher, released balloons into the sky to mark what would have been Amy’s 26th birthday.

Then the family gathered around a birthday cake to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ – scroll down to the foot of the article to watch the video.

Christopher said, “Today should have been so different. Just know we are always thinking about you, loving you, missing you and celebrating you on your 26th birthday.

“Our hearts still ache in sadness and secret tears still flow.

“No one will ever know the heartache. Happy 26th birthday Amy. Love Dad.”

Amy Fitzpatrick hasn’t been seen since she went missing from Riviera del Sol, near Mijas Costa on the Costa del Sol ten years ago.

She had been babysitting with her friend Ashley Rose on New Year’s Eve 2007. Amy left Ashley at 10pm for the ten-minute walk home but didn’t arrive.

But she never arrived home and has not been heard from or seen since that night.

Amy was officially declared missing on 3 January 2008.

Searches did not find any trace of Amy, nor has she been seen again since that fateful night.

Ashley says that Amy had her mobile phone with her when she left, yet this was found at the apartment where she lived during police searches.

Amy – who was then aged just 15 – had moved to Spain with her mum Audrey following the break-up of her parents’ marriage.

She lived with her mother and mother’s partner at the time Dave Mahon.

Mahon is serving a seven-year prison sentence after he stabbed Amy’s brother Dean to death in Dublin in 2013. The trial jury dismissed Mahon’s claims that Dean deliberately took his own life by running onto a knife Mahon was holding.

In January Mahon was diagnosed with cancer of the throat and neck according to reports in the Irish media.