The parents of a missing student have said they have lost confidence in the police investigating their son’s disappearance. Jack O’Sullivan, 23, was reported missing after a house party on March 2 in the area of Brunel Lock Road and Brunel Way in Bristol.
His parents, Catherine and Alan O’Sullivan, have lodged a formal complaint against Avon and Somerset Police. It comes after the couple resorted to scouring CCTV in a bid to find their son, leading to them uncovering video of a person they believe to be Jack.
Mr and Mrs O’Sullivan claim it took the police 10 days to share the CCTV with the public and officers missed a moving figure in the video.
Mrs O’Sullivan told MailOnline: “I’ve never been in such a horrific situation. I mean, who on earth is faced with something like this?
“But what’s happened to us is we’ve put our complete faith and trust in an organisation that has badly, badly let us down.”
Mr O’Sullivan told the same publication the police failed to spot Jack in a different place to the one where officers thought he was in CCTV.
The last confirmed sighting of Mr O’Sullivan was at 3.13am walking onto a grassed area at the junction of Brunel Lock Way and Brunel Way.
There were two further sightings which are thought likely to be Mr O’Sullivan, on the Plimsoll Bridge at around 3.25am heading back in the direction of the city centre and on the Bennett Way slip road on the northern side of the river at about 3.38am.
It was Mrs O’Sullivan who spotted a person in the CCTV she believes to have been her son crossing Plimsoll Bridge. She said the family struggled to understand how a police officer could have missed it.
She said the family has now lost confidence in the abilities of Avon and Somerset Police. Mr and Mrs O’Sullivan are also angry their son wasn’t added to Missing People’s register until he had been gone for more than two months.
The distraught family said they don’t accept they may never find Jack and a police theory he entered the water doesn’t stack up.
Mrs O’Sullivan said there is evidence Jack was walking away from the water and not towards it. The family accused the police of focusing solely on the theory he had fallen in.
They have set up a GoFundMe page to raise money towards a £20,000 reward to offer anyone who can provide information to find their son.
Catherine said it would be out of character for her son to go missing, saying he always checked in with family and had sent her a text message at 1.52am to say he was getting an Uber and was safe.
A spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police confirmed the force has received a formal complaint from Jack’s family in relation to the investigation.
The complaint has been recorded by the force’s Professional Standards Department and will be assessed by a trained investigator, with updates provided to the family, according to the force.
The spokesman said: “Detectives have carried out an extensive investigation over the past 100 days since Jack went missing. He was last seen in the Cumberland Basin area of the city in the early hours of Saturday, March 2, after leaving a house party in nearby Hotwells.
“This investigation has included reviewing and re-reviewing more than 100 hours of CCTV footage; carrying out expert-led searches by land and water involving multiple teams, including the dog unit, drone unit and specialist dive team; proactively seeking and acting on advice from national policing specialists and issuing multiple appeals to the public and media for information.
“Sadly, despite these efforts we’ve been unable to find Jack to date. We fully recognise the distress and anguish this has had on Jack’s family and our thoughts remain very much with them. We’re determined to do all we possibly can to find the answers they so desperately need.”
Avon and Somerset Police repeated its appeal to anyone who was travelling in or walking around Cumberland Basin on Saturday, March 2, anytime between 2.30am and 5.30am to contact the force on 101 with the reference number 5224055172.
