Wednesday marks a tragic anniversary for the friends and family of Janine Vaughan – 15 years since she disappeared without a trace following a night out in Bathurst.

An exhaustive police investigation, a Police Integrity Commission inquiry and a coronial inquest all failed to shed any real light on what happened to Ms Vaughan, nor where her remains might now be.

Not even recent advances in cold case technology have delivered real answers for Janine’s parents and siblings who would dearly like to give her a proper farewell.

And, sadly, they are not the only ones suffering the same pain in Bathurst.

The family and friends of Jessica Small and Andrew Russell share the Vaughans’ anguish as they, too, hold out hope of one day having their loved ones’ bodies returned to them.

The rest of us cannot imagine a life lived under such a cloud.

The unsolved disappearance of three young people from our city has left a terrible stain on Bathurst, as has the reality that there must be people in our community that know more than they have told police.

But those disappearances – as appalling as they are – are not even the darkest chapter in our city’s recent past.

The appalling revelations uncovered by detectives attached to Strike Force Belle continue to resonate even four decades on from the crimes.

Long-time residents cannot believe such evil was taking place for so long in our city without ever being suspected.

That priests involved in the crimes against young students – such as convicted child abuser Brian Spillane – held such positions of trust and authority only makes their actions more heinous.

It is a small mercy to the many victims of those men that justice is now being served but we might never know just how many young lives were damaged – and lost – in the meantime.

All these horrors are in our past but they should not be forgotten as we face the future. Bathurst has much to be proud of but there is also much to regret. And it’s only by honestly addressing the past that we can ever hope to cleanse those stains.

Anyone harbouring the truth in any of these cases owes it to the victims’s families and our city to come forward at last.