Linda Leslie lights a candle for her missing brother every year on his birthday and at Christmas and New Year.

"It's my way of remembering him," she says. "My way of reminding myself that we need to keep fighting to find out what happened to him."

Ms Leslie is just one of the thousands of Scots who face the pain of a missing family member each year, with Police Scotland revealing that almost 12,500 people were reported missing in 2017/18 alone.

The reports have been described as "one of the biggest demands on modern policing" and behind many of them are families left wondering and waiting for news of what happened to their loved ones.

In Ms Leslie's case, her brother John Coleman went missing in Edinburgh in May 2009 and, nine years on, she has no more information about what happened to him.

Speaking as the police released annual missing person statistics, which showed an increase of almost 1000 cases year on year, she said: "I just can't describe the pain of not knowing what has happened to him.

"There's not a day goes by that I don't think about him and run through different ideas in my head about what might have happened, it's horrible, it eats away at you."

Police say Mr Coleman was last seen at a homeless hostel on Leith Street on May 1, 2009.

The 61-year-old, originally from Glasgow, had been homeless for several years and had just recently been released from prison when he disappeared.

Ms Leslie, 53, who now lives in Greenock, no longer believes that her brother is alive, but is still desperate to know what happened to him.

"There's never been any positive news, somebody saying 'I've seen him'," she said. "It's just like he vanished.

"John would have been in touch with us by now, he would've claimed his benefit, he would've had to see a doctor for his epilepsy.

"There's been no birthday cards, no Christmas cards, and that's not like him.

"In my heart of hearts, I know he's dead. But I still need to know what happened to him.

"He's part of me, part of my family. People might think that because someone is homeless, their family don't care about them, but that's not the case.

"Sometimes the person just can't cope with living with their families, or function in that environment, and that's what happened with John.

"We had to accept that he couldn't cope with staying with the family, but he was still very much a part of it."

Read more: 22,000 missing persons inquiries opened in one year, Police Scotland reveal

Mr Coleman's family, including his other sisters Alison, 51, and June, 58, and his brother James, 56, have experienced this pain before.

Their younger brother George went missing for 12 weeks at the age of 25 before his body washed up in Kirkcaldy harbour.

Ms Leslie said that, while George's death was heartbreaking, the family "got closure" and the chance to say goodbye, unlike Mr Coleman's case.

Their mother has also died since he went missing, so never got the chance to hear what happened to her eldest son.

Ms Leslie, who is unhappy with the way police dealt with her brother's disappearance, said: "I promised my mum that I would keep looking for answers and that's what I'm trying to do.

"But it's been so long now that sometimes I start to think that we might never find out what happened to him and that's heartbreaking.

"If I think about it too much, I just breakdown, I can't cope with it."

The figures from Police Scotland show that the force investigated nearly 23,000 missing person reports in 2017/18, around 25 per cent of which related to people who had been reported missing ten or more times.

More than 99 per cent of missing people are traced alive, while 0.4 per cent are found dead and 0.1 per cent remain untraced.

Assistant Chief Constable Bernard Higgins said: "We cannot underestimate the impact such cases have on families and people’s loved ones and the support of communities is vital in helping us trace missing persons.

“We are absolutely committed to tracing those who have been reported missing and our officers and staff work tirelessly in every case to achieve a positive outcome for families.

"While no crime has usually been committed, missing persons investigations are one of the biggest demands on modern policing and can be very challenging."

Read more: Police Scotland rapped over failure to find body of dead man in his house after a month

Susannah Drury, a director at Missing People, a charity that works closely with Police Scotland to provide support to families, said she believes Scotland outperforms the rest of the UK when it comes to supporting missing people once they return home.

She said: "No matter how long someone is missing, whether it’s hours, days, years, we understand from speaking to families that the anguish of not knowing what’s happened to their loved one can be unbearable, with some describing it as torture.

"Even when a missing person returns, the reason they first went missing is often still present, as can be seen by the vast number of people who go missing on multiple occasions. This can be difficult for all involved.

"We believe Scotland is ahead of the rest of the UK in tackling this issue by ensuring both adults and children who return from missing have a chance to talk about their experiences and about what support they need to prevent them going missing again."

Ms Leslie added: "I have a lot of happy memories of John, even going back to our childhood when he used to rub my feet to warm them up when it was cold.

"I have a photograph of him up on my wall so I can see him everyday, so I remember him. He's there telling me to keep fighting, keep looking, so that's what I have to do."