PCC criticised over Jack O'Sullivan disappearance
Supporters of Jack's family are growing increasingly frustrated with Avon and Somerset Police
Supporters of the campaign to find missing Bristol student Jack O’Sullivan have criticised Avon & Somerset’s police and crime commissioner (PCC) for failing to do enough to ease tensions between the force and the community.
It comes after members of the Find Jack group bombarded Clare Moody and Chief Constable Sarah Crew with messages urging them to do more and make the search a priority, during a live Police Question Time broadcast on Facebook.
Jack went missing on 2nd March on his way home from a house party in Hotwells, nearly six months ago.
His family have criticised the police for failures and delays in the hunt for the 23-year-old and have filed a formal complaint about their attempts to find him.
Jack’s mum Catherine O’Sullivan this week said the force had treated them with ‘disrespect’.
Now supporters of the Find Jack campaign have slammed Avon & Somerset’s new Labour PCC for failing to act as the bridge between the community and the constabulary and say this has resulted in unnecessary tensions and anger.
A spokesperson for the group, which has a Facebook page with more than 55,000 members and a dedicated Find Jack website, said: “We were getting a lot of agitation on the Facebook group for people to demonstrate outside a police station.
“We were not allowing the posts because we didn’t want the page to become political.
“So we wrote to Clare Moody to tell her there was growing agitation and that people were wanting to demonstrate and that the lack of updates from the police was causing problems.
“She wrote back within three hours but with the classic ‘I can’t intervene in a live investigation’.
“We then went to the PCC’s public forum in Emersons Green to ask about her role as the relationship between the community and the police because people on the Facebook page were still agitating to demonstrate.
“We had a long chat afterwards and I explained to her all the frustrations being experienced with Avon & Somerset Police stonewalling the family.
“There was just no urgency from the police.
“They keep using the line ‘It’s a live investigation’ as an excuse not to share anyuthing with the family.
“They are not viewing it as a crime, so what is it that makes it so confidential?
“To be fair, she listened to us and replied this week to say she is monitoring the situation.
“We don’t know exactly what the PCC can do but her role is to manage the relationship between the community and the police, and that is not happening.
“There are 55,000 people on the Facebook page, the majority live in Bristol and Somerset, but there has been no management of that relationship whatsoever.”
The spokesperson said it should not be the page administrators’ responsibility to stop supporters and well-wishers from calling for protests at police stations.
“If we’re the ones having to stop that, the police and the PCC are the ones doing something wrong in their communication,” they said.
“If Clare Moody is the link and is responsible for that community relationship and holding the police to account, what is that actually meant to look like?
“This is a great example of where it should be happening but there’s absolutely nothing.
“I would expect her to acknowledge this is a really large group and to arrange a sit-down between the police and the group, explain what’s happening and understand our concerns.”
A link to the Labour PCC’s monthly Police Question Time grilling of the chief constable on Monday, August 19, was posted on the ‘Find Jack’ Facebook group, with supporters flooding the public chat to the broadcast with messages about the missing student and asking why they were not discussing the case.
Moderators from Ms Moody’s office replied that the pair would not see the livestream comments during the session but that all the messages would be shared with them afterwards.
Asked to comment, Ms Moody said: “I appreciate the strong feelings and concerns expressed regarding the case of Jack O’Sullivan during this month’s Police Question Time (PQT).
“I also completely understand the depth of emotion surrounding this case, but the PQT sessions are necessarily structured to focus on holding the police to account for their strategic performance, and can’t comment on any individual cases.
“My role as PCC is not operational, which means I do not have the remit to intervene in individual cases.
“I have understandably received a lot of correspondence from concerned members of the public about this case.
“While my role as PCC does not allow me to interfere with a live police investigation, I want to assure everyone that I am closely monitoring police activity in relation to Jack’s disappearance.
“My thoughts are with Jack’s family and friends during this extremely difficult time.”
The family have conducted their own searches with the help of the general public and have now hired experts to focus on specific areas to try to find him.
In their latest statement on the case, on July 19, Avon & Somerset Police said: “Detectives have carried out an extensive investigation since Jack O’Sullivan went missing. He was last seen in the Cumberland Basin area of Bristol in the early hours of Saturday March 2 after leaving a house party in nearby Hotwells.
“This investigation has included reviewing and re-reviewing more than 100 hours of CCTV footage, carrying out expert-led searches by land and water involving multiple teams, including the dog unit, drone unit and specialist dive team, proactively seeking and acting on advice from national policing specialists, and issuing multiple appeals to the public and media for information.
“Sadly, despite the efforts carried out to date, we’ve been unable to find Jack.
“We fully appreciate the distress and anguish this is having on Jack’s family and our thoughts are very much with them.”
Anyone with information can call 101 and give the call handler the reference number 5224055172, or complete the force’s online appeals form.
A website dedicated to Jack's case has been set up here.