- Jack O’Sullivan, 23, went missing in Hotwells, Bristol, on March 2 earlier this year
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The family of missing student Jack O’Sullivan has been dealt a fresh blow after police abandoned searching an ‘area of interest’ due to having ‘limited resources’.
Catherine O’Sullivan, whose 23-year-old son vanished after a house party in Hotwells, Bristol, on March 2, has been forced to call in private detectives and specialist dogs to search the route Jack may have walked home.
Jack’s mother alerted Avon and Somerset Police to an ‘area of interest’ where the dogs had became ‘agitated’ along the busy A370, which runs from Bristol city centre to the family home in Flax Bourton and beyond.
After having to wait a week for police to ‘consider’ the report, officers were finally deployed to search the route for the first time on Thursday.
But Mrs O’Sullivan, who has been forced to search the undergrowth herself, has revealed to MailOnline today: ‘Unbelievably, the police left the search after a short time to go off to another situation as they were short of resources.
‘It’s totally unacceptable and has made us extremely angry. It’s like a form of torture. They felt they had more important things to look into with their limited amount of resources available. It frankly made us feel utterly awful.’
Jack O’Sullivan (pictured) vanished after a house party in the Hotwells area of Bristol on March 2
Catherine O’Sullivan, 52, has revealed her frustration after police abandoned a search area
Police abandoned searching the area of interest along the A370, where private dogs had become ‘agitated’ in. Pictured is the route Jack would have taken home if he had walked
She continued: ‘They have not done enough to know for sure it’s been done based on [our] external search team’s findings.
‘The police think the area is totally unnecessary to look at but have had no choice given the first dogs’ reactions.
‘We now can’t move forward until the police have checked, or at least say, it’s been searched. The police went on to say Jack remains a priority but to us it really doesn’t seem so.
‘It would not be in the police’s interest to find anything related to Jack here as we have been asking to get this area checked out since the first day Jack was missing.
‘We really couldn’t feel any worse as this area is two miles from our front door I have tried to get into the undergrowth myself – it’s a bad as it can be.’
Mrs O’Sullivan said the police updated her on Monday to say they may return today – but they have not confirmed as of yet.
A spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police said: “Our specialist dog units were deployed to assist with searches along the A370 last week but unfortunately we needed to redeploy these resources due to a separate and emerging missing person investigation in Yeovil, for which we’ve since made arrests on suspicion of murder.
“The searches have resumed today and we’ll be completing them as soon as we can. We’ll be keeping Jack’s family updated on any outcome. We’re sorry for any distress caused by this unavoidable delay.”
From having to trawl through CCTV and carry out searches herself to being denied access to crucial phone and Apple AirTag data, Jack’s mother has become increasingly frustrated by the police investigation.
Mrs O’Sullivan is convinced that her son did not fall in the water – and believes police have been too fixated on this theory from day one.
She is clinging onto the belief that the 23-year-old is alive as she ‘has not been shown any evidence’ to suggest otherwise.
Jack, who moved back home to Bristol to complete a law conversion after graduating from the University of Exeter, vanished without trace after a house party in Hotwells on March 2.
MailOnline revealed last week how the family’s private investigator discovered Jack fell down the stairs and hit his head before having an ‘altercation’ with another partygoer who joked about him having too much to drink.
This brief clash did not go further and Jack left the party just before 2am, with his last confirmed sighting in the area of Brunel Lock Road and Brunel Way at 3.15am.
He tried to call his friend who was still at the party at 3.24am but when she called back 10 minutes later, she heard ‘hello’ before the call cut off.
Jack’s phone last pinged at 6.44am – and his mother has found further possible sightings.
Mrs O’Sullivan, of Flax Bourton, Somerset, has claimed police had been ‘fixated’ on a theory that Jack had fallen into the water on the way home from a party.
But she said there has been no evidence to suggest this – and divers have found an array of items including football boots and a wedding ring – but not a single trace of her son.
And she says she has now lost total confidence in the police and been forced to take matters into her own hands – employing the services of a specialist dog team.
She said: ‘If he had gone into the water, people with experience have told us ‘you should have found him by now.’ Or found something at least – some evidence he was in the water. However there has been nothing.
‘You can see from the CCTV it is not possible he fell into the floating harbour. The footage is quite good. Beyond where he was seen there is a lock but the harbour master has told us if he had fallen in there, they would have found something.
‘They don’t have anything and police divers have been in on many occasions. They have found a wedding ring, glasses, football boots so it feels like they have worked through it in good detail – but they’ve found nothing that belongs to Jack.
Jack O’Sullivan graduated from the University of Exeter and returned to Bristol for a law conversion
Mrs O’Sullivan has lost total confidence in the police and been forced to take matters into her own hands – employing the services of a specialist dog team
Jack O’Sullivan (centre) is pictured graduating with his parents Catherine (front) and Alan (right) and brother Ben (left)
Pictured is Hotwell Road, where Jack was at a house party on the night he went missing
‘The police seem to have based all searching on looking where his phone was last used. It does not mean to say he was with his phone.
‘There is a huge suggestion he was not with his phone – and they have got to look everywhere.’
‘We feel the police have not put any effort into anything that was not around their water theory. We firmly believe any opportunity to search should have been done.
‘Recently a carrier bag was found floating in the water so a team was sent to check it out.
‘Anything on land seems to be a lot harder and has to be ‘put for consideration.’
Mrs O’Sullivan said she spends every waking moment hunting for Jack and has come up with her ‘most likely theory’ of what has happened.
She added: ‘My theory, although I must stress there isn’t any firm evidence to substantiate, is that he got into a car, knowing or unknowingly. A taxi, or maybe a car he thought was a taxi, has taken him out of the immediate centre – and dropped him somewhere.
‘It is really hard for me – this is the only thing I do. Every minute of the day when I am awake I am looking for Jack, trying to make sense of it all and keep the momentum going.
‘I am not prepared to accept Jack is not here until someone gives me evidence of where he is.
‘I know that might sounds crazy but the facts are not here. Where is he? Until I get some further information – for me Jack is somewhere and I just have to keep looking.’
In a wide-ranging interview, Mrs O’Sullivan said they had lost trust in the police when they realised vital CCTV clues had been missed and not followed up.
She added: ‘At the very start we had no idea what we were dealing with or what to expect and were in the police’s hands. We would hang on every word they told us and listened to every bit of information.
‘We had no reason to doubt or mistrust anything. It was only as we were progressing and kept asking questions – it started to dawn on us this does not make sense.
‘I wanted to see CCTV footage and was given some to review myself at home. I found Jack walking along the top of a bridge that had been completely missed by the police.
‘Everything changed from that point onwards. The police seemed to close ranks and communication changed.
Mrs O’Sullivan previously told MailOnline that she uncovered this footage while trawling through CCTV herself. Although police have not confirmed this is Jack, the family say it is his ‘walk and gait’
Catherine O’Sullivan is pictured with son Jack O’Sullivan at his graduation
‘For us the fact it was missed was a huge mistake and so detrimental. It was over three months and the search lost such vital signs and opportunities to secure more CCTV.
‘It was then I started to doubt what I had been told. I hoped it raising it would see police increase efforts but it had the opposite effect. Things moved to email correspondence only and it really felt like they were closing ranks.’
Mrs O’Sullivan has since made a formal complaint to the IPCC which remains ongoing.
She added: ‘We wanted help but that was not what we got when we needed it most.’
Despite the occasional troll, including one individual she has reported to police for demanding money in exchange for information, Mrs O’Sullivan said the support from the community had been ‘overwhelming.’
She added: ‘The support has been unbelievable -people are contacting me personally and on the Facebook group daily.
‘It is overwhelming how generous people can be and that is so supportive. People have been offering to put together huge search teams.
‘It is hard to get the balance doing things safely – we are not trying to aggravate the police. But we also really need to do our searches and do anything we can get the message out.
‘I felt really strongly we should spread the message further than just Bristol.
Jack had been at a house party with friends from his course when he left in the early hours of the morning
‘We lost so much time and he could easily be further afield.’
Mrs O’Sullivan said the family had already used a specialist dog search team they were waiting for more searches to be done as they retrace the spot where Jack was last seen to his family home six miles away. This included a search after an ‘area of interest’ was discovered on the A370.
She added: ‘We are in the hands of the search team when they can come next.
‘We are also still trying to pursue phone data so we can see ourselves. After the mess with the CCTV we can not leave anything to chance and want to make sure everything is looked at properly.
‘We are having to get a court order to get our hands on it and it is taking a while.
Avon and Somerset Police have released CCTV showing the last confirmed sightings of Jack in the early hours of the morning of March 2
‘We will just keep going and look into every possible sighting. We know police aren’t taking a lot of them seriously so we have to follow up ourselves.
‘If there is anything significant our first port is to ring the police, but we just don’t feel assured they would respond the way we want them to.
‘I hope they are still taking it with the seriousness it deserves but we have doubts.’
Avon and Somerset Police say that since Jack’s disappearance, more than 20 different teams and departments have been involved in the investigation.
A spokesperson said more than 100 hours of CCTV have been reviewed, 200 hours of searches on the river and the surrounding banks, mounted police searches from Bristol city centre to Flax Bourton, 40 land searches, and 16 drone deployments.
Assistant Chief Constable Joanne Hall, of Avon and Somerset Police, said: ‘Our staff and officers remain committed to doing everything we can to find Jack and we do not underestimate what a distressing time this has been, and continues to be, for his family.
‘Throughout our investigation, we’ve been open-minded about what happened to Jack, considering different possible outcomes and scenarios following his last sighting.
Jack’s parents say the police’s theory that he fell in the water ‘doesn’t hold up.’
‘We have sought reviews from independent agencies such as the National Crime Agency (NCA) and experts such as oceanographers and independent Police Search Advisors.
‘Sadly, despite the efforts carried out to date, we have been unable to find Jack and we fully appreciate the anguish this is having on his family and our thoughts remain with them during this hugely difficult time.’
The force said a dedicated officer is in regular contact with the family but said ‘in investigations of this nature, there tends to be periods which are more dynamic and fast-paced and others which are longer-running.’
A spokesperson added: ‘Where the investigation has progressed and activity becomes more prolonged, or there are fewer updates to give, the communication flow will not be to the same extent. However, whenever there are any significant updates, we will always make direct contact with them.’
In response to the rejection of the family’s request for phone data, ACC Joanne Hall added: ‘We have taken time to carefully consider the data request to see if there was any way we could agree to it in order for Jack’s family to get the answers they deserve following his disappearance.
‘However, on this occasion, we are restricted by law and have been unable to identify a clear legal basis which would allow for the disclosure to take place.’