Jack O’Sullivan’s mother reveals ‘altercation’ at house party before his disappearance

Yesterday (22nd September), the mother of missing student Jack O’Sullivan revealed more information surrounding the lead-up to her son’s disappearance.

Catherine O’Sullivan detailed the police’s failing to investigate how Jack had fallen down the stairs and hit his head before getting into an “altercation” on the night of March 2nd, MailOnline reports.

She explained how she has now hired a private investigator to look into the circumstances of Jack’s mystery disappearance. Speaking about the latest revelations from the night her son went missing, Catherine said: “It’s been really sketchy.”

After being denied access to vital phone and Apple AirTag data, trawling through CCTV footage, and conducting various searches herself, Catherine has felt very frustrated by Avon and Somerset Police’s investigation.

Jack hardly knew anyone going to the house party but Catherine encouraged him to go to meet new people.

He got on the bus from his home in Flax Bourton to Bristol city centre to have pre-drinks with some university friends at Wetherspoons. The four of them then went to the house party on Hotwell Road, hosted by a coursemate from Jack’s law conversion course.

Having completed his degree at the University of Exeter, Jack moved back to Bristol for the law course.

He spent the night with his university friends, however at one point hit his head after falling down the stairs.

Someone at the party, who Jack did not know, joked about him having too much to drink, which provoked Jack to shove him, but this did not escalate further.

Jack’s mum received a text from him at 1:52am saying that he was safe and planned to get a taxi home. An hour later, he left the party, yet didn’t say goodbye to his friend who was outside smoking, and he never returned home.

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CCTV showing the last confirmed sighting of Jack. Credit: SWNS

Catherine explained how they have now had conflicting reports about what exactly happened at the party.

She said: “The girl at the party who was on the phone to him [later at 3.24am] said that Jack got into an altercation with someone as he was leaving the party. The police say that it was nothing and that they haven’t got any knowledge of that being any form of concern.

“We’ve tried to look into that ourselves with a private detective and he questioned some of the people. In the interview with the boy that Jack had the description of an altercation with, his very descriptive interview says that he was standing at the bottom of the stairs as Jack was leaving.

“Jack tripped on the stairs and he laughed at him and said, ‘You’ve had enough, mate’, that type of thing. As Jack got up, he pushed him and that was the extent of the altercation.

“It was described as an altercation. Obviously we’re not there so we have no idea. But what this chap went on to say was that Jack hit his head when he fell down the stairs.”

Catherine added that she took this new information to the police: “Now I went immediately back to the police with that and said you’ve never mentioned anything of the sort. [We asked] ‘Can we look at the statements of the people at the party again?”

She explained how she doesn’t believe the police gave her the official statements, and that their response to her was a “slight fob off”.

“We just can’t get to the bottom of anything.

“When I recently asked again [for the party statements], they said they had told us what we needed to know and they couldn’t officially give us these things to look at because it’s a police investigation, and they’re not allowed to share things of that nature.

Jack had an Apple AirTag attached to his keys, however, the O’Sullivan family have been unable to access the tracking device’s data due to privacy laws.

“There’s just blanks with everything, there’s so many things that don’t make sense here.”

Catherine described how Jack’s friend had gone out to have a cigarette, while Jack stayed inside, but when she returned, he had left.

Jack’s friend thought it was a bit strange that he’d left without saying goodbye, “because Jack isn’t that sort of person really”.

Catherine continued: “So she went to look for him but she couldn’t find him anywhere. And I think she started messaging him and said, ‘Where are you?’

“He then rang her but she didn’t answer the call. She said she had a problem with her phone, and she was trying to answer it, and it wouldn’t connect.

“However,  about 10 minutes or so later, she rang him back and she says he answered and just said ‘Hello’.

“My question is, ‘Was it Jack that answered?’ But again, nobody can be accurate with that. She thinks it was Jack, but he just said ‘Hello’, and didn’t say anything else. That was at 3.35am.

“Her account is that the phone line remained open for about 58 seconds. She didn’t hear anything else in the background. She said she didn’t hear vehicles or anything going past or the sound of any other person.

“And then the line cut out. All the calls she made after that were not answered.”

Jack’s mother has been in contact with two charities who have been able to help search the route that Jack would have gone if he had tried to walk home.

Catherine described how the police have repeatedly refused to look at this area due to his phone usage not showing signs that Jack walked that far.

Yet Catherine believes that maybe he wasn’t with his phone, and that because of the “treacherous” nature of the route, it should be an area of concern.

She said: “At the beginning, we were completely in the police’s hands in terms of how they went about this, but as time’s gone on, and you know some of the mistakes have been uncovered then you just think well, we can’t take anything for granted as being done very well.

Catherine also revealed how the family has instructed lawyers to apply for a court order to get Jack’s phone data from mobile provider EE.

“We know that at 4.39am, the phone was using equivalent data to a nine-minute video. We know that the messages I sent to that phone at 5.40am were received by that phone. And we know that the phone was still on the network up until 6.44am and then it stops.

“We’ve got all these kind of snippets of information, but they’re not deep enough to confirm anything for certain.

“We can’t rely upon what we’ve been told by the police. We need to do it for ourselves.”

Catherine and her husband Alan have lodged a formal complaint against Avon and Somerset Police.

A spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police said to the MailOnline: ‘We are aware that Jack was involved in a verbal altercation at a house party in Hotwells the night he went missing and is reported to have fallen down the stairs.

“There is no evidence that Jack sustained a serious injury following this incident.”

Avon and Somerset Police say that more than 20 different teams and departments have been involved in the investigation since Jack’s disappearance.

A spokesperson said more than 100 hours of CCTV have been reviewed, 200 hours of searches on the river and the surrounding banks, mounted police searches from Bristol city centre to Flax Bourton, 40 land searches, and 16 drone deployments.

The force said it has received almost 100 calls from the public with possible sightings, and eight media appeals have been issued.

Assistant Chief Constable Joanne Hall said: “Our staff and officers remain committed to doing everything we can to find Jack and we do not underestimate what a distressing time this has been, and continues to be, for his family.

“When I look at missing persons investigations [in Avon and Somerset] over the last year, we’ve had around five and a half thousand.

“Missing people are somebody’s loved ones, they’re somebody’s family, and we don’t close the door on that.”

If you have any information, please call 101 with the reference number 5224055172 

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Featured image via SNWS.