Christmas and anniversaries can’t be easy for the O’Sullivan family but today – Jack O’Sullivan’s 24th birthday – is a particularly painful day as they are still searching for him.
More than a year after he vanished into thin air and they still don’t have any clues as to what happened to him the night he went missing – March 2, 2024. And every day without him is “hell” mum Catherine told the Mirror.
“We have no evidence to suggest Jack is no longer with us and no information to say where he is. I’m stuck on March 2, 2024. It’s hard to explain how we are feeling. The world stops – and it only gets more painful, not less.”
Jack was in Bristol after attending Exeter University and was about to start a law placement. He was last seen in the area of Brunel Lock Road and Brunel Way in Bristol at around 3:15am the night he disappeared. This sighting was of Jack walking close to a stretch of water known as the Cumberland Basin, close to Bristol Harbour.
After 3:15am, there are two further sightings which are likely to be him – on the Plimsoll Bridge at around 3:25am heading back towards the city centre, and on the Bennett Way slip road on the northern side of the River Avon at around 3:38am. He lived with his mum and dad Alan in the village of Flax Bourton, Somerset and his mum had offered to give him a lift home in a text at 1:52am. He replied that he would take a taxi home.
Instinctively knowing something was wrong when he failed to come back, she alerted the police. After police spotted Jack near the Cumberland Basin, officers focussed their efforts there, telling the family he had likely fallen in – knowing that 85 per cent of men who go missing near water after a night out, do just that. But, without a body, the O’Sullivan family cannot accept this.
“I’m convinced he never fell into the water because the police never found anything,” says Catherine. “They haven’t located his phone or found anything that belonged to him. They focussed all their attention on this theory and were slow to follow up other lines of inquiry.” Catherine and a team of private detectives have been looking for Jack, who would now be 23-years-old. They found new CCTV footage of Jack walking back towards a busy city centre – away from the water – at 3:38am.
“Someone knows something,” Catherine insists. “I’ve studied the CCTV and even at 3.40am there are vehicles travelling past him and people walking around. Bristol is quite a lively place all through the night – it’s not a remote area where nothing is happening. I can’t understand how one single person has not seen anything – even if we are going down the police’s narrative of him falling in the water. There are people walking at the side of the water. Wouldn’t they have seen something? It just seems incomprehensible for him to completely vanish without a trace.”
She continued: “I still firmly believe he got into a car because he was trying to flag down a taxi – and his last message to us said he was getting a cab home. In my heart I have to believe we’ll find him. I don’t know what mother would write their child off without evidence to prove it. I’m not giving up yet.” Catherine, dad Alan and son Ben, 28, were told of a body washing up on South Wales last month. “I was so distressed that I could barely hold the phone,” Catherine recalled.
“From the information the police gave us, we really did think it was Jack. The description fitted – he was a similar height and age. However, they said they could not come to a conclusion until DNA analysis came back. We found out after a few days the process hadn’t even been started – and it took six days to get the confirmation that it wasn’t him. That was the worst six days of our lives.”
Assistant Chief Constable for Avon and Somerset Police Joanne Hall wants people to look back at the night of March 2 last year. “Do you remember what you were doing that cold, snowy day in March 2024?” She asked. “You may recall seeing something which, on the surface, seemed unimportant but may be an important piece of information for us to know. Do you remember seeing anything on your journey, whether you were walking in the area or travelling on the roads?
“Our investigation has been extensive, with resources utilised from more than 30 different teams and organisations, including support from colleagues within the fire service, HM Coastguard and the National Police Air Service (NPAS). This includes seeking independent advice, support and guidance from experts at the National Crime Agency, an experienced Police Search Advisor from a neighbouring force and an independent oceanographer.
“We have kept an open mind throughout this investigation and regularly review our various hypotheses around Jack’s disappearance. We ask you again to please, cast your mind back to this time last year and think about any details which may help us.”
Catherine thinks the police missed a “window of opportunity” by focusing on a theory that Jack had fallen into the water. She said: “People have contacted me and said ‘I was driving in that area and I have a dashcam but unfortunately it was overwritten because, by the time I was notified by the police, it had gone past 60 days’. It’s so awful hearing that. It just makes you think ‘what is going on?’…I feel as though I’m watching this nightmare on TV but sadly this is our life.”
One theory is that Jack could have been concussed after falling down the stairs at the house party before he left to get a taxi home. While he seemed completely fine, as a school matron, Catherine has experienced boys seeming completely normal after a knock to the head, only to become confused sometime later.
Anyone with any information, no matter how insignificant they think it may be, please email findjack23@gmail.com or contact Missing People for free 24 hours a day on 116 000.
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