Clifton Suspension Bridge suitcase investigation not linked to Jack O'Sullivan, say police

The family of missing Bristol student Jack O’Sullivan have been informed of the investigation into a body being dumped on the Clifton Suspension Bridge, but police have said they do not believe there are any links between the two cases.

Jack went missing in Bristol on March 2 - more than four months ago - and his last known location was near to the Clifton Suspension Bridge, at the Cumberland Basin just 800 metres away.

However, police said ‘no parallels are being actively drawn’ between the ongoing search for the missing 23-year-old, and the incident which saw a man abandon two suitcases on the approach to the Clifton Suspension Bridge just after 11.30pm on the night of Wednesday, July 10.

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At a press conference near the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Chief Inspector Vicks Haywood-Melen, said she understood that there may questions about whether this incident could be connected to the missing persons inquiry, but said the police were not linking the two.

“I understand the parallels that might be made with Jack’s case, and we would ask anybody to avoid any speculation at this time,” she said.

“What I can confirm is just because of the nature of the incident and because of the concerns that people may have, a senior officer has been in contact with Jack’s family to inform them of the incident, but I can confirm at this time that no parallels are being actively drawn,” she added.

Jack was last seen at the Cumberland Basin after leaving a house party in Hotwells in the early hours of March 2. His phone remained in that area, and extensive searches, inquiries and appeals by the police have not provided any evidence that he may have left that area.

The police contacted more than a thousand taxi drivers in the region, and scoured CCTV from the area, and concluded that they do not believe Jack left the Cumberland Basin area, which is where Bristol’s Floating Harbour and the tidal River Avon meet.

While this location is 800 metres as the crow flies to the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the bridge is a long walk or drive from the Cumberland Basin, and the circumstances of the incident on Wednesday night - where a man arrived in a taxi with two suitcases containing a body and left them at the bridge - do not lead police to connect the two cases.

Police issued two images of the man who ran off and is now being hunted by police, as well as a description, as more details emerged of the scenes on the Leigh Woods side of the bridge last night.