I don’t write a great deal about the desperately sad disappearance of missing student Jack O’Sullivan because, well, what’s the point? The boy was last seen at 3.15am on Saturday 2nd March in Bristol after a night out in the city, after attending a house party in Hotwells, which is by the floating harbour and leads to the Avon Gorge. Nearly nine months on, it seems no one saw anything and nothing that Jack had with him has turned up. How can this be? The simple answer to this question is simple: we don’t know. And maybe we never will.
To me, it doesn’t sound at all odd that no one saw anything. Jack’s disappearance occurred in the early hours of the second day of the meteorological spring and very few people will have been up and about. People will have been driving through the area – I have frequently been through the area at this time on airport runs – and others returning home after a night on the town. Before Jack’s disappearance, I probably saw people on the streets of Bristol as I drove, or was driven, to Bristol Airport for an early morning flight, but thought nothing of it. Now, when I drive through the area in the early hours I think of little else other than Jack’s disappearance and in fact think about him when I pass through in daylight hours. But it took his disappearance to make me do that.
I make no public comment on the heavy criticism Jack’s family have made of the police. Again, what’s the point? Police officers have been accused of missing clues and, worst of all, not caring. The Daily Mail – Surprise! Surprise! – has referred to “bungling cops”. I have no idea whether the criticism is fair but even if I feel it isn’t, how would I really know? I am not party to the investigation. I know nothing about the case other than what I have seen and heard about Jack’s disappearance. And if Jack was my son I might well have strong opinions, justified or not, about perceived inadequacies with the police investigation, would I not express them in public?
In very general terms, I have a great deal of sympathy with the police, not least because I worked with them a great deal in my DWP employment days. They were no different to me or you but I always felt that when I would run away from danger, they would run towards it, just like other frontline emergency workers like firefighters and paramedics. For many coppers, the job is more a vocation than a nine till five operation and they did it because they loved it and believed in it. There are wrong ‘uns in every walk of life but I would suggest that few coppers would simply not care about what happened to this missing young lad. My experience, and that’s all it is, suggests that they would do anything to find the answers. But what if there aren’t any?
The kindness of strangers has been in evidence since March. Ordinary people have gone out and searched for Jack, despite the lack of evidence, in the hope that something would turn up. Private detectives and specialist dogs have been used, sadly, to no effect. But still people carry on searching because, quite simply, they care and they want to help. Yet after nearly nine months, nothing has changed.
One frequent comment is “Someone must have seen something” but what if no one saw anything? Drivers are more likely to be concentrating on the road ahead and a stranger passing by might only have been seen at the limits of one’s peripheral vision and then instantly forgotten. What the investigation probably needs, more than anything else, is luck.
The not knowing must be killing the family. Even bad news would be better than no news. No news means no closure. But if there is no evidence and there are no leads, what are the police meant to do? Five and a half thousand people went missing in this area last year. Missing Persons is A Big Thing for a police force under more pressure than ever. Then, tragically we hear a story of a young man who goes and then stays missing. Unless you have a heart of stone, you will feel nothing but sadness. I am not sure if I would be able to present the dignity the family has shown since Jack’s disappearance.
No one has forgotten about Jack. I cannot think of a missing persons story that has attracted as much publicity as this one. And until something changes, speculation is pointless. We all wish the family’s nightmare was over, one way or another. It’s certainly one of the saddest stories I have ever followed, that’s for sure.
