‘My son went to a party two years ago and didn’t come home – every day is a struggle but I won’t give up hope’
Every day has been a struggle for Catherine O’Sullivan since her son went out with friends and never returned home more than two years ago.
When he wakes up in the morning, his first thoughts are about Jack, and his last thoughts before going to bed are about Jack. He spends the intervening time in a quiet house, devoid of the once-warm energy of his close-knit family and simply existing rather than living.
His sole focus is on maintaining hope in a determined search for his son – following leads, pursuing possible leads, hiring private detectives – as he blames the police for failing the family and, most importantly, Jack.
Mrs O’Sullivan told Independent: “From our family, Jack and I are incredibly close. I felt privileged to have such a close relationship with my children. We would talk about everything, all his plans. Jack was very ambitious and really had a plan and a definite idea of what he wanted to do with his life. He’s really funny and quite mischievous. We joked around a lot as a family here.”
“The house is completely silent now. There’s no energy here anymore. It feels like we’ve all lost our way because we’re missing a very important part. It’s extremely sad.”
“Kind, caring” Jack O’Sullivan, who turned 25 last Saturday, went to a bar and then to a party at someone’s house with some friends in Bristol on March 1, 2024. Mrs O’Sullivan described that evening as “normal”, with her son’s last message telling him not to wait and that he would take a taxi back to the family home in Flax Bourton, just outside Bristol.
But when she woke up at 5.30am she discovered he had not returned, which was deemed “totally out of character” for the law student. Frantic messages and calls went unanswered and searches by Jack’s brother Ben, 29, and father Alan, 60, turned up nothing.
The 54-year-old said: “Not much has changed for me [since then]Except time moves forward. Every day is sad, every day is a struggle. But we have all developed the resilience to keep going.
“It’s really hard. It’s hard to keep the momentum going with my physical health, my mental health. But I don’t think I have a choice… My only goal is to find Jack. Then the rest of the time I have is to do the best I can to be a good mother to my other son and a good wife to my husband.”
“We support each other really well. It creates different levels of pressure for each of us.”
After the family reported him missing, it was determined that Jack was last seen in the area of Brunel Lock Road and Brunel Way in Bristol at around 3.15am on March 2, 2024.
But Ms O’Sullivan claims the “complete incompetence” of Avon and Somerset Police is at least partly to blame for the family’s continued lack of response. He said they were left without support and forced to investigate themselves after police allegedly hijacked Jack’s security camera twice and failed to preserve some footage, take some key witness statements or follow up on some observations.
“We’re eager to find any information that might be helpful; we can’t just dismiss this as one of those things, we have no idea what it is,” he said. “We’ve hired private detectives, we’ve hired digital experts, there are things we have to outsource, things we would never know in the normal world that the police have to do… I don’t think the public has any idea about the failings of this situation.
“We feel like we have no voice here, and more importantly, neither does Jack.”
Ms O’Sullivan eventually reached out to the charity Missing People and contacted a support worker called Belen, whom she described as “my angel”.
Missing People has launched SafeCall, a free, confidential, 24-hour service for the 72,000 children who go missing in the UK every year. Independent It exceeded its fundraising target of £165,000. Ms O’Sullivan gave a moving speech to an audience gathered last month to raise money for the charity.
he said Independent: “You feel like you’re walking on a tightrope and then you’re going to fall – everything is so uncertain, it’s a brutal lifestyle. If Jack could tell someone where he was or that he was okay, or if someone could do that on his behalf, then that would be my will.”
A spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police said: “We know how difficult it is for Jack’s family that, despite extensive investigations, we have not yet been able to find him or provide the definitive answers they desperately need. “From the very beginning, we have always had a shared aim of finding Jack and this intention has been at the heart of every action we have taken and the decisions we have made.
“Alongside our ongoing investigation, we have also used specialist experts and independent bodies to review, test and secure our work, ensuring that further investigative opportunities are fully explored. “We have been guided by the evidence at each stage and pursued relevant avenues of investigation.
“It is important to emphasize that this remains a live investigation. If anyone has information that can assist with our inquiries please contact us via our website or call 101 quoting reference number 5224055172.”
Following the complaint made by Jack’s family, the spokesman said the internal investigation found 10 of the 11 allegations contained an acceptable level of service, while police “fully” accepted the eleventh allegation. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) review “concurred with many of our findings”, it said.
Anyone with information about Jack’s case is asked to contact his family Here.
Please donate now To the Independent and Lost People Safe Search The campaign raised £165,000 to create a free nationwide service to help vulnerable children find safety and support. If you or a loved one goes missing, get in touch for advice, support and options safecall.org.uk
