The disappearance of the young student Jack O’Sullivan has moved the good people of Bristol like nothing else I can remember. He was last seen in the Hotwells area of Bristol in the early hours of 2nd March 2024 and despite the efforts of the authorities, particularly the police, it seems we are no nearer to finding out what has happened than we were back then. The publicity campaign feels unprecedented. It’s on the mainstream media, it’s all over social media and early this morning as I returned from an airport run I drove through the area in which he was last seen and I thought about nothing else.
Driving across the Cumberland Basin, there are posters showing pictures of Jack’s face and asking whether anyone has seen him. Long before I reached the area, I found myself on the look out. Long Ashton and Ashton, which are the main areas you pass through before you reach Hotwells are full of scrubland, thick, seemingly impenetrable bushes and trees. These line the road for some distance. Could Jack be in among them? I have no idea, but in a small gap in traffic I found myself glancing across.
There’s a large allotment under the road, too. I’m assuming searches have taken place? Police work these days is intelligence-based, but it seems there is no intelligence. Searching these areas would be time-consuming, just-in-case, hope-for-the-best type work. What else is there to do?
On the bridge that separates the ‘floating harbour’ and the mudflats through which the River Avon navigates as it heads to the Bristol Channel, there are the posters. ‘Have you seen Jack?’ and ‘£20,000 reward for information’. You cannot miss them.
I cannot possibly imagine how Jack’s family are feeling because this is every parent’s worst nightmare. That, I suspect, is why the story has tapped into our psyche because we know that he could be anyone’s son. This could be our world that’s been turned upside down, ours the not knowing as to what has happened. And we all want to help.
Today was a reminder of how even those repeated sharing of photos and posters across the mainstream media and social media have sustained our collective desire to find Jack. I did wonder why people were sharing the images on a closed Facebook account, but then again I realised as I drove through the area his name and his image was etched in my mind. It worked with me and I am sure it’s working with you.
We all hope against hope that Jack could still be alive, although with each passing day we fear he probably isn’t. But he must be around somewhere. If the worst happened, did he fall in the river and get washed to sea, or did he venture further away from the Hotwells area? Would it be worth for one day closing all the roads around the area and asking people to take part in a search of all the nearby fields, scrubland, allotments? I suspect half the population of Bristol would volunteer to do that. This may be an absurd suggestion, based as it is on a needle-in-a-haystack strategy, but does anyone have a better idea?
This is not me knocking the police, far from it. I’ll bet they have already thought about my suggestion, and doubtless hundreds more, and for all we know carried out in depth searches on foot, by way of drones and all the rest of it. Desperate times require desperate measures. I just wish, for the family’s sake, that there could be some kind of conclusion because for now and seemingly forever there can be no closure.
As I drove through Ashton – and I have written something along these lines already – I just wanted to see Jack and take him back to his mum and dad. Just an opening in the bushes by the side of the road and there he is. That’s the human being in me and I would wager that everyone else would feel the same. Not for any personal reward, far from it. Just to end the nightmare, to bring light through the darkness; to take Jack home.
The publicity is working. The repeated sharing of posters and photos is keeping the search going. There is still hope. Keep going, everyone.
