Jack O'Sullivan: 'My aim on this earth is to search out my lacking son'

In March this 12 months Catherine O’Sullivan’s son Jack went on an evening out in Bristol and by no means returned house.

In the weeks that adopted, she stored the porch mild on to make sure he wouldn't be disturbed if he returned.

Six months later, that mild has been turned off, however now her days are spent trying to find solutions, because the household believes police haven't achieved sufficient.

“I go out every day. My day is based on what I want to look at next, until I have no more areas to check,” she says.

“We basically climb fences, jump ditches … it gives me peace of mind that I know the area is safe.

“I am Jack's mother and my goal right now on this earth is to find Jack.”

Jack was 22 when he went missing on the morning of Saturday 2 March.

After graduating from the University of Exeter, he lived at home with his parents while studying a law conversion course at Bristol.

He had gone out for a drink and then to a house party with people from his course, from where he left shortly before 03:00 GMT.

Katherine previously told how she had messaged him at around 01:00 am to see if he was okay, as he had been out with people he didn't know well, and to see if he wanted a lift home.

He sent a message to say he was fine and was going to get a taxi.

But when she woke just after 5 a.m. and saw he still hadn’t come home, she “knew something was wrong.”

Since then, Jack's household has been experiencing what lacking individuals professional Charlie Hedges calls “unexplained loss.”

“You can't understand what has happened. You can't draw any conclusions from it,” he says.

“So you get confused, you get wondering, and every little thing that's said makes you think, 'Is this something we should react to? Could this get to our son or daughter or a loved one?'.”

“It can be sad and horrible, but if you lose someone in a fatal road accident or they die for some other reason, at least you know what happened. Unfortunately, in a missing person case you don't have those answers.”

Since Jack's disappearance, the Facebook group Find Jack has gained greater than 57,000 members from world wide.

There are fixed posts, arguments and theories about his disappearance.

His mom says individuals have instructed “a lot of good, common-sense ideas” to the household to analyze Jack's disappearance, and whereas the general public's help has been reassuring, the messages the household has obtained have been removed from it.

She says, “I have received messages that Jack has been taken hostage and a ransom is being demanded for him.”

“People are telling me that terrible things have happened to him and where I can find him.

“But what would someone do in my situation? I have to read them, even though I know how bad it is, sometimes I put myself through hell, but I can't ignore anything.”

One side of Katherine is happy to see that people are taking the search for answers so seriously, but at the same time, she is saddened by it.

“I never thought I'd see Jack on a billboard [Bristol shopping centre] Cabot Circus,” she says.

For the family, life still seems stuck on March 2.

Katherine points out potential areas she may have missed on her large OS map covering the kitchen table.

“We haven't but obtained any info to point which course Jack went or the place he’s now,” she says.

“We are in a position to contact the police as soon as every week by means of e mail, however we’re getting nowhere. They will not be answering our questions.”

In the month of June, Jack's parents lodged a formal complaint against Avon and Somerset Police regarding the handling of his disappearance.

Following the complaint, police voluntarily referred the matter to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which recommended an investigation be conducted locally.

The family says mistakes were made in the initial stages of the search and although CCTV footage showed him at different places at different times, he was not seen initially.

Katherine found this out when she was allowed to see part of it herself.

In July Katherine also got permission from the owners to search an electricity sub-station on Granby Hill, which she says was ignored by police even though the location was just metres from her last known location on the Find My Friends app.

“We don’t feel like we’re getting a lot of support from the people who should be doing the most,” she says.

Police say the location was considered and found to be inaccessible, and CCTV was checked but did not show Jack.

Katherine says: “We have asked them for information to help us with our search which they cannot provide as it is an ongoing police investigation … technical information about his phone which we are not allowed to see ourselves – even though the phone is registered in my name.”

The information she is referring to is the location of the last signal Jack's iPhone sent to the Find My Friends app on the day he went missing.

Katherine says investigators privately hired by the family are willing to help, but the data they need is with the police.

“We are demanding this only because we have very little confidence in the police doing their job properly.

“A few days ago, I met a man who said, 'I have a ring [doorbell] footage. I live in the street next to where Jack's phone last rang in Granby Hill and nobody asked to see it.'”

Joanne Hall, assistant chief constable of Avon and Somerset Police, says the law prevents them from sharing the information requested.

When the family found the limited CCTV cameras in the area where Jack went missing, and the recordings from that night, they were able to see that several vehicles must have passed him at that time in the morning.

The police had earlier said that About 400 vehicles would have passed under the jack This incident happened when he was last seen crossing the flyover.

“There's all kinds of trucks, trucks, ambulances, normal cars… people,” says Katherine, and she insists that someone out there must know where Jack went.

She believes that the family is living a “very unusual life”. In fact, it is an “unimaginable” and “terrifying” life.

“For me, it's a huge motivation to keep going,” says Katherine. “But some days that's easier said than done.”

“Our daily focus is just finding Jack. We keep moving forward, because we are grateful to Jack.”

Avon and Somerset Police say more than 20 different teams and departments have been involved in the investigation since Jack's disappearance.

They are assisted by other agencies and emergency services, such as the fire and ambulance services, the National Police Air Service and the RNLI.

The investigation so far has seen more than 100 hours of CCTV reviewed, 200 hours of searches of the river and surrounding beaches, a mounted police search from Bristol city centre to Flax Bourton, 40 land searches and the deployment of 16 drones.

The force says it has received almost 100 calls from the public about possible sightings and eight media appeals have been issued.

Ms Hall, who met with the family in July to discuss their concerns, said: “Our staff and officers are committed to doing everything possible to find Jack and we cannot comprehend how distressing this time has been, and continues to be, for his family.”

“When I take a look at lacking individuals investigations [in Avon and Somerset] Compared to final 12 months, we had about 5,500.

“The missing people are somebody's loved ones, they're somebody's family, and we don't close the door on this.”

Further searches have been deliberate following info and recommendation obtained from different regulation enforcement businesses.

Police say they may notify Jack's household as soon as a remaining determination has been made on the criticism, and are once more interesting for any witnesses to come back ahead from Saturday 2 March.

Now, for the household, the first-day shock has been changed by one thing utterly completely different.

It's a terrifying realization that this isn't some nightmare they'll get up from, it's merely their terrifying new actuality.