The mum of a missing student last seen in Bristol says she will “keep the fight up” because that is what her son would do. Catherine O’Sullivan has kept up the search for her son Jack since he went missing on March 2 this year, although efforts so far have yielded little in the way of results and his disappearance remains a mystery.
The last confirmed sighting of Jack, 23, came after the student left a party in the early hours of March 2, as he walked through a car park onto a green below the Plimsoll Swing Bridge by Cumberland Basin. However, police believe CCTV footage of a person walking down Bennett Way in Hotwells – towards the city centre – at 3.38am is highly likely to be Jack.
Speaking to BBC Crimewatch, Catherine said that “nothing makes sense” about her son’s disappearance. “Nobody can tell me where he is or what’s happened. It’s a rollercoaster from hell. Until somebody can tell me where Jack is, I have to believe he’s somewhere and I’m not gonna stop looking until I get an answer.”
The 52-year-old told the programme of the “strain” her family had been under since her son went missing. “Some days you cope better than others,” she explained.
“I think sometimes the strain we’re under can, at times, become overwhelming. But somehow we keep the fight up because that’s what Jack would do.”
Catherine continued: “Nobody would have a bad word to say about Jack. He really is a very kind, caring young man – very family orientated.” She added: “He’s one to put people before himself and just a really good egg.”
Though numerous searches of the city and the river near where Jack was last seen have so far been fruitless, Catherine isn’t giving up hope of seeing her son again. She said: “I don’t know where Jack is but I can’t accept that I’m not going to see him.
“I just have to, you know, stick with that belief until somebody can tell me anything else. That’s where I am and I have to live with that tiny little bit of hope that it’s all going to be okay.”
Avon and Somerset Police has said the investigation into Jack’s disappearance is still ongoing and today issued a fresh plea for information on the BBC programme. Detective Inspector Jason Chidgey repeated descriptions of what Jack was wearing on that night, as well as key events that took place in Bristol, in hopes of jogging someone’s memory.
“On the bottom half, he was wearing blue chinos with quite distinctive brown Ralf Lauren shoes with really distinctive white soles,” he told the BBC. “On the top he was wearing a cream woollen jumper with is green khaki Barbour jacket.”
DI Chidgey added: “It was a particularly cold night after a mile week in Bristol and it snowed. It would have been very cold, it would have been icy and there was snow on the ground.
“Bristol City played Cardiff the afternoon that Jack was last seen. We’re hoping that those two events might trigger something for someone to come forward.”