A British father who has spent two years searching for his missing daughter and her mother believes that members of a shadowy, alternative network have information about their whereabouts, but they refuse to speak to police.

Henry da Massa, who came to Toronto from Manchester earlier this year following a sighting of his daughter, said that these pseudo-anarchists operate under a code of silence which has all but thwarted his two-year search.

"It's difficult for me to define what this group is," da Massa told ctvtoronto.ca by phone on Saturday.

"They haven't been forthcoming with me and I don't think they've told the truth to police."

He is now centering his efforts on a daycare which his ex-wife apparently ran in the Riverdale area.

"People need to talk now, or this is just going to be a tragedy," he said.

Police in Britain allege that the six-year-old child, named Pearl Gavaghan da Massa, was taken out of the country unlawfully by her mother on Dec. 9, 2008.

A warrant for the arrest of the mother, 33-year-old Helen Gavaghan, has been issued in the United Kingdom. It's believed that Gavaghan first took the child to Mexico but ended up in Toronto's gritty Parkdale neighbourhood.

In February of this year, Toronto police said that "it was discovered that Helen had been living in Toronto … for about 12 months under the name Dana Flaherty."

While in Toronto, the fugitive mother adopted the pseudonym, fed her child at community meals and clothed the girl by attending clothing swaps.

Further evidence about the mother's ties to alternative networks exists in emails.

Before she left for good two years ago, Helen sent a flurry of emails, looking for subculture groups which would allow her to live off the grid with her child.

In one email, Helen wrote: "it's the more anarchist type communities that I've been attracted to. Although there (are) hardly any unfortunately."

The decision to leave her life in England was reached after a thorny court battle which resulted in joint custody with da Massa.

While there was one further sighting in Toronto in July, since then, the trail has gone cold.

"We haven't had a confirmed sighting since then," said da Massa, who has been renting an apartment in the Broadview and Danforth area and has given up working full-time in order to search for his child.

"I think it comes down to … she's being harboured."

But the father hasn't given up hope, and he believes that a solution in the puzzling case could be found in a central Toronto neighbourhood where Gavaghan ran a day drop-in service for kids.

The ad-hoc daycare operated around the Riverdale Farm area of Toronto, tucked into one of the small apartment units which make up the low-income area of high-rises near Dundas and River Streets.

Da Massa has been told that his former wife operated the drop-in centre on a cash-only, under-the-radar business model.

Parents were charged $10 to leave their children for a day, and sometimes up to 15 kids a day stayed at the daycare, which operated out of a single apartment unit.

"But none of those parents have come forward," da Massa said, adding that he has canvassed the apartment blocks but hasn't gleaned any pertinent information.

"I came over here thinking that we were almost at the end of this long journey," he said.

"I think the answers are still in Toronto."

Anyone with information about the daycare or the case is asked to call police at 416−808−2222.