Residents are set to come together to search for missing man Jack O'Sullivan. Jack, who has turned 23 since he went missing, had been on a night out with his friends before he disappeared on March 2.
Seven weeks on from being last seen walking across Plimsoll Bridge back towards a house party at Hotwells Road at around 3.25am on March 2, members of the local community will gather for a search party. With approval from Jack's family, Katie Bailey will meet with volunteers near the BW Cycling building on Brunel Way and discuss various search routes from 11.45am on Wednesday (April 24). The searches will then take place from 12.20pm.
Katie told Bristol Live she wants to do anything she can to search for Jack or find any clues to his disappearance. She said: "We are doing this in a safe way. When people get here, there will be a safety talk and everything will be explained about the search.
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"We will do it as a walk and people can go in any direction. We are telling people that if you see anything surprising or suspicious, don’t touch it and contact the police. We need more eyes to go out there. Someone just doesn’t go missing."
He is described as white, around 5ft 10ins tall, of slim build, with short, brown hair. He was last seen wearing a quilted green/brown Barbour jacket, a cream knit lambs wool jumper, navy chinos, and brown leather Ralph Lauren trainers with white soles and a chunky Hugo Boss silver watch.
Jack was also in possession of an Apple Air Tag in a brown leather case, a Peugeot 108 key fob, his driving license, black card holder and his house key. Referring to Catherine O'Sullivan's belief that Jack would have been passed by 15 vehicles, Katie hopes just one of those drivers or its occupants remembers seeing Jack in the area.
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She added: "This search is about getting as money people to do the search and see if anything will come up. Hopefully we can find something from there. Please try and think what you were doing that night.
"If a friend or family were taxi divers, see if you can remember seeing a man. There is a family wondering where their son or brother is. He is not just another lad. He is their family."
Since his disappearance, police divers have been scouring the area around the Cumberland Basin and the Avon Gorge, while police have repeatedly renewed their appeal for people who were driving, walking or were bus passengers in the area at the time, to get in touch.
Earlier this month, Mrs O'Sullivan shared her family’s desperate situation and said they were hoping Jack's phone could provide clues to what happened to him. The last confirmed physical sighting of Jack was at 3.12am on March 2, but his phone was still on the network at 6.44am. “They know that from the provider,” Mrs O’Sullivan said.
"We know that Jack made a call and received a call around 3.30am, and we know that there are periods of data usage, but they can't confirm what that usage might have been. It goes up to 5.45am in the morning.
“There's a big time gap between him and being sighted to that point. We are aware that he may not have had his phone," she added.
Mrs O'Sullivan also revealed that the family had used a ‘Find My Phone’ app, which provided an approximate location. However, the police were initially unable to search the address it showed, due to a lack of evidence. She added: “They didn’t initially go there because they said they had no evidence as Jack wasn’t sighted there, which was very frustrating for us.”
Speaking at the site of Jack’s last confirmed location on April 2 one month on from his disappearance, senior investigating officer DI Jason Chidgey said: “This is an incredibly difficult and distressing time for Jack’s family and friends and we are continuing our efforts to try and find him.
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“It has been one month since Jack was last seen down in the Cumberland Basin area and we continue to appeal for anyone who may have been driving along these roads and may have seen something, or have dashcam footage if they did not see it themselves.
“If you live in the area and have CCTV or video doorbells, please check back to Saturday 2 March and see if you notice anything or anyone meeting Jack’s description.
“The smallest bit of information could make a huge difference in our investigation so, even if you don’t think it is important, we encourage people to still get in touch with us.
“We are keeping an open mind about where Jack is but this is very out of character for him and we have been working hard to track his movements that night.
“Detectives have carried out extensive CCTV trawls, house-to-house enquiries, we have deployed a specialist dive team to search the basin and the wider River Avon – due to Jack’s proximity to the river when he was last seen – and have been looking at his phone and why that was active after his last confirmed sighting," he added.
The What3words meeting point for the search is Rivers.necks.motel.
