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Catherine O’Sullivan, the mother of missing Jack O’Sullivan, who went missing one year ago on March 2, 2024 after going to a party

A year has passed since Jack O’Sullivan vanished without a trace. But for his mother Catherine O’Sullivan, time has stood still. “I don’t feel any different than I did on March 2 last year,” she said. “I’m stuck on that day. It is really hard to recognise the time because everything has stood still for me.”

Jack is described by his family as “quiet and reserved” but beneath it all “a real cheeky chappie”. A big lover of sport, Jack is a massive Man United fan and avid Welsh rugby supporter. Although he was born in England, being the son to Welsh parents Jack is extremely passionate about his roots and would write on his CV that he was a “proud Welshman.” Jack was in every way a normal guy with aspirations of bettering himself – which makes everything that has happened all the more shocking.

Jack, 23, disappeared in the early hours of Saturday, March 2 last year after attending a party in Hotwells, Bristol – just three miles from his family home in Flax Bourton. Despite extensive searches and investigations no trace of him has been found, leaving his family trapped in a cycle of unanswered questions and unimaginable pain.

The day prior to his disappearance he had set off from his home to meet three new friends that he had recently made through his law conversion course. They met at a Wetherspoons, where they stayed for a couple hours before heading to a flat in the Hotwells area – not far from the floating harbour and Cumberland Basin.

His parents, who were also out in Clifton, messaged Jack to ask if he wanted a lift on their way home; but Jack declined, deciding to stay out longer than initially planned. The last message Catherine received from Jack was at 1.52am to let her know that she did not need to wait up for him and he would get a taxi home.

It is said that he left the party at around 3am, attempting to ring a friend who was still at the party at 3.24am. Although the friend returned the call at 3.30am, the call disconnected after Jack said “hello.” The last CCTV sighting of him was at 3.40am at the top of a slip road called Bennett Way. This is the last known image of Jack; he has not been seen or heard from since.

Catherine, 53, originally from Neath, recalled waking up at 5.24am on March, 2 with a sick feeling. “I just woke up with a start,” she told WalesOnline. “I felt something wasn’t right. I got up and checked Jack’s room, and the light was on from when he’d gone out the night before, then I went downstairs and saw that he clearly wasn’t home, which was really odd because that was not Jack. If he did stay out, which was really rare, he would always message and tell you.”

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Missing man Jack O’Sullivan(Image: Avon and Somerset Police)

The Find my iPhone app revealed to Jack’s concerned parents that his phone was active at an address in the Granby Hill area, prompting them to go and look for him. “It seems rash, but I just knew at the time that something was wrong,” Catherine said.

Jack’s father Alan and Catherine arrived at the location, which was a “maze-like” area, and proceeded to search, ringing Jack’s phone in the hope that they would hear it. Not long after they called their oldest son Ben, who immediately joined them along with his girlfriend Abby.

The family were able to officially report Jack as missing after lunchtime on March 2 but continued to search for him themselves until the early evening. “The four of us – myself, Alan, Ben and Abby – were in a complete daze,” Catherine said. “We didn’t know what was happening. Then around 10 o’clock in the night, we got a call from the police to say that they had some information for us. I told them I wanted to know over the phone – I didn’t want to just sit there and wait. That’s when they told me, rather abruptly, that CCTV footage showed Jack in very close proximity to the river, so they believed he fell in and drowned.

“I was totally and utterly distraught. What on earth do you do? What do you say to that? As parents, I believe that is one of the worst things you can possibly be told and it was pretty much based on a theory rather than fact… It was bizarre and cruel.”

Catherine went onto share that the investigation “properly took off the ground” on the following Tuesday, two days after Jack went missing. As time went on her faith in the police began to wane and doubts grew. While they have searched the area, Catherine said that much of the police’s time and effort have been dedicated to the theory that Jack had fallen into the water.

“They seem to have been very thorough with the water activity; hundreds and hundreds of hours, all sort of different teams, coastguards and diving teams have gone into it. They even drained the Cumberland Basin – they found someone’s wedding ring, someone’s glasses, a football boot – but nothing relating to Jack.

“I truly believe that there’s not a mother on earth who would just accept that [police’s water theory] because there’s no evidence. If Jack’s shoe had been found in the water – something, anything that belonged to him – then we’d have to consider it.”

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Huge search efforts to locate Jack have been undertaken(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)

Three months into Jack’s disappearance, Catherine was given access to CCTV the police had retained and in effect had said was no longer of value to the inquiry. But after hours of watching, she found a sighting of Jack at 3.17am, which showed him walking away from the river, as well as the final sighting at 3.40am. The police had missed both of them.

“They were looking at the wrong angle and he’s right there on the screen. They were looking at the railings at the other end of the screen, they were focussing on the railings rather than Jack.

“There’s a national statistic of men on a night out that fall into water if they had been out drinking, and they [police] just made the assumption based on that,” Catherine stated. “But even to this day – 12 months on – there’s still no evidence that suggests Jack was anywhere near the water.”

In light of this, Catherine has developed her own theories of what happened to her son. “I felt this from the start and it’s my gut telling me this… Jack was planning to get a taxi, and in some CCTV footage, you can see him approach a taxi, but it was unfortunately booked. Is it possible that he flagged down another car, thinking it was a taxi or Uber – but inside was someone with bad intentions?

“We also had a report from our private investigator that someone from the party had mentioned that Jack had fallen and ‘smashed his head in’. This is probably a wild theory but was Jack concussed, and had gotten into a car and given the wrong address? It all seems, after 12 months, highly unlikely because someone would have come across him by now but we just don’t know.

“We have nothing to base this on. All we know is that one minute he is walking along then he vanished. For me, him getting into some sort of vehicle, with everything on him and driving out of the area is an option.”

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The O’Sullivan family have been struggling to come to terms with the fact that Jack has not been seen since March, last year(Image: Jon Rowley)

Catherine said she still lives with the hope that Jack is out there – but this has been tested. One of the most difficult moments of the whole process occurred nine months after Jack’s disappearance, when a body was reportedly found in Swansea. On January 4 this year the O’Sullivan family were alerted by police of the development and told that it was in their opinion that it was “very likely Jack.”

The family had to wait six days to find out whether it was him or not. “It was such a difficult and traumatic time – to date, the worst thing that has happened so far. For those six days, we didn’t leave the house. We didn’t tell anyone because we didn’t have anything to tell them.”

It was later revealed that the person found was shorter and older than Jack. “People asked me would it be better if it was him and did you want closure. I said no – when I heard it was I was totally relieved,” Catherine said. “There’s no doubt that we’re all severely stressed over this. There’s definitely been post traumatic stress and it’s been without a reason.”

Beyond this there have been very little developments with the investigation. Catherine said that the Facebook group ‘Find Jack’, which has amassed over 90,000 followers has been put on pause as things have gone stagnant. Read the biggest stories in Wales first by signing up to our daily newsletter here.

“I didn’t want to close the Facebook page down, because I wanted to use it as a channel of communication, should we need it. The Facebook page has been a great source of comfort and we have gotten a lot of messages, good and bad, but we had gotten to a point where I felt we weren’t really achieving anything. The point of the Facebook page was to raise awareness and make Jack’s story known nation-wide, but nothing was really moving forward anymore.”

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A map used by volunteers during searches last year(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)

Now, on the anniversary of his disappearance, Catherine and the family have been coming to grips with it being a full year since they last saw Jack. However, nothing has been planned to mark the day.

“For me, everyday is the same – I get up, I shower, I get dressed, I go to the laptop and check my emails to see if any new information has come in and set out doing the same thing. I’m asking myself the same questions, daily, going over the same theories; trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense.

“It just totally and utterly consumes our lives. It’s like we’re stuck in a nightmare that we can’t get out of and we don’t understand why we’re in it because we don’t have any explanation of what’s going on.

“People have said to us that they want to stage protests outside the police station on March 2 and hold vigils but we don’t want any of that. We just want to find Jack.

“There is always the worry that awareness will fade. You know, Jack is just a normal person. He’s never been in any trouble, he’s got no type of rogue element to him, no type of back story – and he gets kind of ignored because of that.

“Everything that was happening with the boy who went missing in Tenerife, Jay Slater, happened a few months after Jack. Everyone was ringing me, asking if I was cross that Jack doesn’t have that sort of coverage. But I always say no it doesn’t because they are a family who also need answers.”

“My message is if anyone has any information from that night, going forward, or if they have been aware of a situation that hasn’t made much sense, please forward it to the email we have on our website,” Catherine said. “We aren’t taking it into our own hands, anything of significance would always go to the police but we know that many sightings, for example, haven’t been followed up because it is the police’s opinion that that is not possible. My opinion is anything is possible. We are desperate.”

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Catherine has spent every day since Jack went missing trying to find answers(Image: Supplied)

A spokesperson from Avon and Somerset Police said: “Throughout our investigation, we’ve always taken an open-minded, transparent and evidence-led approach, with the shared aim of finding Jack.

“All lines of enquiry have been equally pursued, including extensive searches of land and water, following up public sightings, reviewing and re-reviewing all CCTV and other available footage, contacting drivers and taxi companies travelling in the area and conducting a thorough examination of all digital data.

“As we’ve previously publicly stated, the last confirmed sighting of Jack, where we can say with certainty that it is Jack, was at 3.13am on March 2, when he was seen on CCTV walking through a car park and onto a green area below Plimsol Swing Bridge.

“Following a further review, two later sightings of someone who we believe to be Jack were located. The footage is grainy and taken from a distance, which makes distinguishing clothing and a person’s features especially difficult. However due to the timing, the location, and the family’s views, we feel it is likely to be him. The last of these sightings is at 3.38am on Bennett Way, on Cumberland Basin.

“Over the year, we have been in regular contact with Jack’s family, including in-person, over the phone and over email. We have provided them with regular updates on the investigation and what our planned next steps are.

“On Saturday 4 January 4, we contacted Jack’s family to inform them that a body had been located at Stout Bay, in Wales. Detectives worked with colleagues at South Wales Police, who led on the investigation, and requested the DNA process be fast-tracked to identify the remains as soon as possible and provide answers to the family.

“During the six-day period, the Superintendent overseeing the investigation made contact with the family on several occasions to provide what update we could. We were able to provide the family with an update on Friday January 10 after receiving an update from our colleagues in Wales, where we confirmed the remains were not Jack’s.

“On the year anniversary of Jack’s disappearance, we are urging the public to cast their mind back. What were you doing a year ago? Do you remember any detail which previously may have felt insignificant but now could be a key piece of evidence? It was a particularly cold day and it started snowing and Cardiff beat Bristol 1-0 in the football at Ashton Gate Stadium.

“If you have any information, or have any relevant footage, we continue to appeal for you to come forward and call 101 and quote reference 5224055172 to the call handler. To see our latest appeal ahead of the one-year anniversary click here.”