UK UK - Jack O'Sullivan, 22, left friends after night out, last seen Brunel Lock Road/Brunel Way, Bristol at 3.15am, 2 Mar 2024

[infohuntah]

Exactly, we have no idea what state he was in or what he was thinking. It's easy to get disoriented at night, anyway, but especially when you've had a few to drink and we don't know if he took anything else or not with that. He was at a party, and people do take things. We don't know his emotional state, if something happened at the party that upset him, or if that fed into his choice of actions. He might have had a lot more to drink than even he realised as it can creep up on you, it was very late and he would have been tired. Walking on the roads he walked on isn't easy. It was dark and cold.

The last sentence is exactly why I think (and this is just my objective opinion) that he would have been solely focusing on getting home. I cannot for the life of me understand the route he taken, to the point where I suspect Jack was behaving like someone who was suffering from a concussion. And I hate to sound like a broken record, but I'll say it again: the two things that stand out to me are the push/bump to the head and the strange route Jack taken and how these may be linked.

According to the find jack site, it says:
1:50am Jack sends a message about getting home and says he will get a taxi
2:53am Jack is seen leaving the party and attempting to get a taxi.

So it seems reasonable to suggest that the altercation happened closer to 2:53am than 1:50am. Logic says he would have had to leave close to 2:53am to match the commonly reported idea that he left quickly after the incident.

CCTV showed Jack at 3:39am walking up the slip road (Bennett Way) approx 45+ minutes of wandering after a head impact. After 45 mins, if it was hard enough, concussion symptoms like confusion, poor judgement and disorientation can start to show. So there are a number of factors at play here: a guy with a potential concussion, alone, in the dark of night, potentially lost, walking along slip roads with a flow of traffic.

Again, just my opinion and I'm still carrying an open mind with this one.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

Exactly, we have no idea what state he was in or what he was thinking. It's easy to get disoriented at night, anyway, but especially when you've had a few to drink and we don't know if he took anything else or not with that.

Jack had lived in Flax Burton, a village to the SW of Bristol, for at least a few years and maybe all his life. He was also studying at Bristol University and Hotwells is an area popular with students so it's unlikely he had not previously been to parties in that area.

He would pick up the A370 which would take him almost to his door as soon as he'd crossed the river and canal. The road is part dualled and part single carriageway but it appears to have street lighting along the stretch he would have to walk. He would have driven or been driven, taken taxis or walked along it many, many times since it's the main route between his home and Bristol city centre.

There is vegetation along most of the stretch but the Google streetmap images were taken in July 2025 and show weeds, shrubs and trees along it in full growth. However it would not have been anything like as lush in March 2024 when he went missing.

He was at a party, and people do take things. We don't know his emotional state, if something happened at the party that upset him, or if that fed into his choice of actions. He might have had a lot more to drink than even he realised as it can creep up on you, it was very late and he would have been tired. Walking on the roads he walked on isn't easy. It was dark and cold.

I agree we don't know how much he had drunk or what else he might have taken - from what I hear about student parties these days drugs of various sorts seem to be much more prevalent than booze.

 

[Konstantin]

There is vegetation along most of the stretch but the Google streetmap images were taken in July 2025 and show weeds, shrubs and trees along it in full growth. However it would not have been anything like as lush in March 2024 when he went missing.

I think it's entirely logical that Jack would have thought he would head along the route to home and try to pick up a taxi along the way, and became disorientated and a bit lost given the conditions we've described above.

We have no idea what happened next, whether he was clipped by a car and somehow went into the water (if that is possible), slipped and fell in the mud, lost his phone somehow, met someone who tried to mug him for his phone (and he was also nicely dressed so might have read as wealthy to a mugger, although what mugger in their right mind would be out along that road at that time? What was the altercation at the party about, was it serious or just a bit of banter?

Weren't Jack's family trying to get more phone data to try to see if they could piece together more of his journey or at least his phone's journey if he was parted from it? The place where the phone last pinged, for what that is worth as it is not accurate, was an electricity substation, not somewhere he would likely go himself but his phone could have been chucked in there, though I think it was searched.

 

[infohuntah]

Weren't Jack's family trying to get more phone data to try to see if they could piece together more of his journey or at least his phone's journey if he was parted from it? The place where the phone last pinged, for what that is worth as it is not accurate, was an electricity substation, not somewhere he would likely go himself but his phone could have been chucked in there, though I think it was searched.

The family posted publicly that the area was thoroughly searched with staff who worked at the substation's electrical company and with their own PI. They searched after they found out that the police didn't search there.

The phone was showing on the Find My app as being at the substation at 5.40am, and was said to remain on the network until 6.44 am, which is when they presume the battery went flat.

Now this is just my opinion. The phone data might be slightly inaccurate, but I doubt it is wrong by very much. The party was on Hotwell Road and the Find My location was Granby Street, which is about a five minute walk away. Knowing that signal quality is poor in that area, the location would have been placed within a radius rather than a precise point.

Apple Find My often displays a radius of uncertainty and it uses Bayesian statistics for estimating the most likely spot based on evidence available. That means it provides a best guess using probability, signal strength and proximity based detection. The difficulty is that the radius could easily cover the water, the route from the last CCTV sighting, Granby Hill, and potentially back toward the house where the party was held. That range makes it hard to draw firm conclusions from the data alone.

However, the publicly shown map indicated that the most certain point of the position the centre of the blue circle was located near the Granby Hill substation. So it is reasonable to say the device was likely very close to that point.

 

[Konstantin]

Perhaps having got lost and failing to find a taxi, cold and very tired, Jack tried to make his way back to the party house.

The police not searching there is baffling - was an explanation given?

 

[infohuntah]

Perhaps having got lost and failing to find a taxi, cold and very tired, Jack tried to make his way back to the party house.

The police not searching there is baffling - was an explanation given?

No explanation was ever given to my knowledge. I think it’s why the family got frustrated with the police because the lack of effort and bizarre choices by police most likely hampered the search effort.

This case is a real shame. By all accounts, Jack was a hardworking young man with ambitions and was actively planning for a good future.

 

[SteveH]

Jack had lived in Flax Burton, a village to the SW of Bristol, for at least a few years and maybe all his life. He was also studying at Bristol University and Hotwells is an area popular with students so it's unlikely he had not previously been to parties in that area.

He would pick up the A370 which would take him almost to his door as soon as he'd crossed the river and canal. The road is part dualled and part single carriageway but it appears to have street lighting along the stretch he would have to walk. He would have driven or been driven, taken taxis or walked along it many, many times since it's the main route between his home and Bristol city centre.

There is vegetation along most of the stretch but the Google streetmap images were taken in July 2025 and show weeds, shrubs and trees along it in full growth. However it would not have been anything like as lush in March 2024 when he went missing.

I agree we don't know how much he had drunk or what else he might have taken - from what I hear about student parties these days drugs of various sorts seem to be much more prevalent than booze.

If Jack was trying to walk home it is much more likely that he would walk through Long Ashton (aka LA!) than walk along the grass verge of the A370. It would be a lot safer - better lit and slower traffic - and take no longer. I can remember when the A370 Long Ashton bypass opened and the excitement of using it to get to Weston-Super-Mare from Bristol. The road through LA used to be the main road to Weston and the buses still go through the village.

By the way if you want to see older versions of Google Street View then you can enter a location and click on "See more dates" in the black box in the top left hand corner. For the Long Ashton bypass you can go back as far as July 2008.

Jack was a pupil at Clifton College - I believe his parents were/are on the staff there - and so would certainly have been familiar with the Hotwells area, at least as a passenger in a car or bus, as he would have to go through the area to get to and from school. By car you would go via Bennett Way (where he was last seen on CCTV - if indeed that was him) up the Hotwell Road/Portway (under the Suspension Bridge) and take Bridge Valley Road up to Clifton College. This was the school by the way that Christopher Jefferies, who was arrested after the Jo Yeates murder and hounded by the press, taught at (I knew him back in the mid '70s).

The road system can be very confusing with slip roads and bridges, and railings which can inhibit you taking the shortest route. For example if Jack had wanted to go back to the party the shortest way for him to go once he had taken the steps down to Hotwell Road (and why do that?) would have been to turn right or if going left walk a little further down the road to cross where there are no railings and double back on yourself, and not go back up Bennett Way which swings round to the south, away from Hotwells. Of course even if you know the area well, at that time in the morning if you were tired and had taken drink you might not be thinking clearly.

Perhaps Jack was trying to get back to Brunel Way to walk south (in the hope of picking up a taxi?). At one point (earlier) he walks close to the Create Centre where I worked for a few months in the '90s. If he had continued round a little further he could have taken the Ashton Avenue Bridge (a pedestrian and bus route) over the New Cut of the river - I once saw a body floating downstream from this bridge - and followed footpaths/cycle routes through to Bower Ashton. This would be the quickest route and safer in the day, although perhaps a little spooky at night, but you would have to know where you are going.

Alternatively from Bennett Way you can access a pedestrian bridge over Hotwell Road which would take you straight to the bottom of Granby Hill, as I mentioned in an earlier comment (on 6 August this year). Given that Jack's brother lived near the top of Granby Hill I am very surprised he didn't make his way there if he was tired and confused, but maybe his brother was away. If he was last seen on CCTV on Bennett Way at 3.39 am and his Find my Phone app said he was near the electricity substation on Granby Hill at 5.40 am what was he doing for two hours? Why wasn't he picked up on CCTV? Of course it is possible that someone stole his phone but it seems a little unlikely in that area at that time of the morning.

You couldn't fall in the river after being clipped by a car but if Jack had gone back down to the waterside there are walkways with no railings and pedestrian bridges - for example see Google Maps and Google Maps - which are a little rickety. If you fell in off either of those bridges you could be swept downriver by the tide. Another possibility is "Brunel's Other Bridge" which goes right under the Plimsoll Swing Bridge: Street View · Google Maps or Google Maps which is slightly to the west of the swing bridge.

A body was found in the harbour a couple of days ago.

"Police searching for a missing 28-year-old man say they have recovered a body from a city centre waterway.

Avon and Somerset Police said Rehaan, from Llanelli, in Wales, disappeared on a night out with friends in Bristol and was last seen at around 01:00 GMT on Sunday near the city's harbourside."

Body found in search for Llanelli man missing in Bristol

Police say the body was pulled from the water in the centre of the city.

www.bbc.co.uk

This is unfortunately a frequent occurrence but if someone goes into the Floating Harbour or Cumberland Basin- both dock areas - the body always turns up sooner or later. In the New Cut of the river (to the south) or further downstream by the Hotwell Road/Portway it is tidal and theoretically possible that a body could be washed out to sea.

I mentioned in my earlier comment that my uncle and aunt lived in a street in Hotwells which was demolished in the early '60s - I have vague memories of it - to make way for the new bridge/road system. My uncle's mother owned the house which had three storeys and was given £200 - a pittance even then - when it was compulsorily purchased. She ended up in a council flat on Clifton Vale, another steep hill. My uncle told me lots of stories about the area. As a boy he used to help operate the Rownham Ferry, and later worked for shipbuilders Charles Hill at Albion Yard. Previously he lived on Hotwell Road just below the Clifton Wood slope. There was a cave in one of the rooms which they used for storage and there were some steps up to Clifton Wood at the back which the police didn't know about so that when they came round to have a word with one of his brothers when they had "misbehaved" they could escape up the hill. He also said that his father used to jump in the harbour and swim across to the shipyard to get to work but I'm not sure if I believe that one!

Don't like the look of the Rownham Ferry at low tide:

 

[twomoresmores]

Could anyone possibly please provide a brief summary of the key facts in this case? I followed it at the start but have lost track. I know/think Jack was at a party, set off to walk home in the middle of the night, has been spotted on CCTV, tried to make a phone call (??) and has never been heard from since. Has more information been revealed about anything that happened at the house party?
Many thanks in advance.

 

[infohuntah]

Could anyone possibly please provide a brief summary of the key facts in this case? I followed it at the start but have lost track. I know/think Jack was at a party, set off to walk home in the middle of the night, has been spotted on CCTV, tried to make a phone call (??) and has never been heard from since. Has more information been revealed about anything that happened at the house party?
Many thanks in advance.

sure, here's a summary:
• Date of disappearance: 2nd March 2024, Bristol
• Jack was Age 22 at the time of his disappearance
• Attended a house party on Hotwell Road, Bristol
• 2:53am - Jack leaves the party
• Walks an unusual route around the Cumberland Basin (not the direct way home, if he was indeed heading home)
• Multiple CCTV clips show him taking confusing, indirect paths that end up taking him away from the direction of his parent's home (click here to see the path he took)
• 3:17am - Seen near Brunel Lock Road / Brunel Way grass area
• 3:25am - Seen on Plimsoll Bridge, doubling back at one point
• 3:30am - Jack’s phone received a call from the person he called at the party. Jack supposedly answered, allegedly said “Hello” and nothing else
• 3:39am - Last confirmed CCTV on Bennett Way slip road, walking on a narrow pavement going against traffic
• More than 400 vehicles passed the area in the same period
• He was not seen on CCTV falling into water
• No footage shows him leaving the slip road area
• "Find My" phone app placed it near Granby Hill at around 5:40am (this is disputed because signal in the area is bad so no one is sure if it's accurate and since the phone was not found, it's not possible to confirm)
• His phone remained active on the network until 6:44am
• No body, clothing or belongings have ever found
• Police conducted extensive searches of water, land and CCTV but found no trace
• Family disputes the early police assumption of a water-related accident
• Case remains open and unsolved to this day (3rd December, 2026 at the time of writing)

I hope that brings you up to speed. There's some other info but to my knowledge, this is all correct and most of this info is lifted from the official find Jack story or statements his family have released to the public.

 

[twomoresmores]

sure, here's a summary:
• Date of disappearance: 2nd March 2024, Bristol
• Jack was Age 22 at the time of his disappearance
• Attended a house party on Hotwell Road, Bristol
• 2:53am - Jack leaves the party
• Walks an unusual route around the Cumberland Basin (not the direct way home, if he was indeed heading home)
• Multiple CCTV clips show him taking confusing, indirect paths that end up taking him away from the direction of his parent's home (click here to see the path he took)
• 3:17am - Seen near Brunel Lock Road / Brunel Way grass area
• 3:25am - Seen on Plimsoll Bridge, doubling back at one point
• 3:30am - Jack’s phone received a call from the person he called at the party. Jack supposedly answered, allegedly said “Hello” and nothing else
• 3:39am - Last confirmed CCTV on Bennett Way slip road, walking on a narrow pavement going against traffic
• More than 400 vehicles passed the area in the same period
• He was not seen on CCTV falling into water
• No footage shows him leaving the slip road area
• "Find My" phone app placed it near Granby Hill at around 5:40am (this is disputed because signal in the area is bad so no one is sure if it's accurate and since the phone was not found, it's not possible to confirm)
• His phone remained active on the network until 6:44am
• No body, clothing or belongings have ever found
• Police conducted extensive searches of water, land and CCTV but found no trace
• Family disputes the early police assumption of a water-related accident
• Case remains open and unsolved to this day (3rd December, 2026 at the time of writing)

I hope that brings you up to speed. There's some other info but to my knowledge, this is all correct and most of this info is lifted from the official find Jack story or statements his family have released to the public.

Thank you for taking the time to compile this response. Have police followed up on the Find My location of his phone? Has anyone from the party spoken out about anything deemed relevant?
Many thanks again.

 

[Normal Norm]

Thank you for taking the time to compile this response. Have police followed up on the Find My location of his phone? Has anyone from the party spoken out about anything deemed relevant?
Many thanks again.

As far as I know, no-one who was present at the party has spoken publicly. I am happy to be corrected about this.

The only thing I could possibly add to infohuntah's excellent time-line is that some sort of incident involving Jack is believed to have occurred before he left the party. I think I have seen this variously described as a fall, a disagreement and an altercation, and it may be the case that Jack suffered a head injury as a result of this. I am not sure how this information came into the public domain, or whether it is actually true, given what I have said in my previous point.

 

[infohuntah]

As far as I know, no-one who was present at the party has spoken publicly. I am happy to be corrected about this.

The only thing I could possibly add to infohuntah's excellent time-line is that some sort of incident involving Jack is believed to have occurred before he left the party. I think I have seen this variously described as a fall, a disagreement and an altercation, and it may be the case that Jack suffered a head injury as a result of this. I am not sure how this information came into the public domain, or whether it is actually true, given what I have said in my previous point.

This is correct. If anyone present has spoken, it hasn't been released publicly.

RE: phone. Nothing can be done with it. Apple (rightly so) wont give any information about it. Besides, there's nothing they can give. The data is/was encrypted.

There has been one very strange aspect of the case which troubles me. Jack didn't just have an iPhone, he had an "airtag". The airtag could also have been used to track his location, however, there's conflicting reports about this too. Jack's mother says it was paired to Jack's phone.

Other sources say it belonged to Jack's ex girlfriend. The girlfriend denies it was her airtag. Police say the airtag was never connected to the phone. Jack's mother says it was because Jack showed her at some point before he went missing by hiding some keys in the house and then finding them using the airtag.

So in summary, we know there was an airtag - no one disputes this. But we've got 3 differing accounts:

• Police - it wasn't connected
• Jack's mother - it was connected
• Ex-girlfriend - it wasn't mine

The fact we can't even establish who it belonged to is.....odd.

 

[twomoresmores]

This is correct. If anyone present has spoken, it hasn't been released publicly.

RE: phone. Nothing can be done with it. Apple (rightly so) wont give any information about it. Besides, there's nothing they can give. The data is/was encrypted.

There has been one very strange aspect of the case which troubles me. Jack didn't just have an iPhone, he had an "airtag". The airtag could also have been used to track his location, however, there's conflicting reports about this too. Jack's mother says it was paired to Jack's phone.

Other sources say it belonged to Jack's ex girlfriend. The girlfriend denies it was her airtag. Police say the airtag was never connected to the phone. Jack's mother says it was because Jack showed her at some point before he went missing by hiding some keys in the house and then finding them using the airtag.

So in summary, we know there was an airtag - no one disputes this. But we've got 3 differing accounts:

• Police - it wasn't connected
• Jack's mother - it was connected
• Ex-girlfriend - it wasn't mine

The fact we can't even establish who it belonged to is.....odd.

I don't have an iPhone but I'm aware (I think) of how the air tags work. If the air tag was with Jack, surely it'll need the paired phone to tell you where it is? So if it was paired to Jack's phone and say he had the air tag in his pocket, surely it's of no use? Don't air tags work to locate the thing/person they're attached to? I'm perhaps misunderstanding but I'm not seeing the relevance of this..... If it's paired to Jack's phone.
IMO.

 

[infohuntah]

I don't have an iPhone but I'm aware (I think) of how the air tags work. If the air tag was with Jack, surely it'll need the paired phone to tell you where it is? So if it was paired to Jack's phone and say he had the air tag in his pocket, surely it's of no use? Don't air tags work to locate the thing/person they're attached to? I'm perhaps misunderstanding but I'm not seeing the relevance of this..... If it's paired to Jack's phone.
IMO.

it would need Jack's phone OR any other iPhone in the nearby vicinity to work. Which is a very key detail. Because if someone else was within range (and had an iPhone) then the airtag's location would show up (on Jack's phone and any other phone he shared the airtag with).

But I think you're getting at who can view the location of the airtag. And that depends on A) who owns it B) if it's registered and C) if it was shared with anyone. It's possible to share an airtag location and it's very possible Jack shared it with his mother because he shared his phone's location with her, too.

The problem here is A) we don't know who owned it, B) we've got differing accounts on if it was registered or not C) we can't be sure if it was registered to be shared with anyone

This means that Jack's mother may not be able to view it (if it wasn't shared) and the ex-girlfriend may not have been able to view it (if it wasn't hers, or if it was Jack's and wasn't shared with her).

That's before we mention the battery life of the airtag. Plus, if it went underwater at any given point, there's no guarantee it would transmit a signal.

It's just very strange to me that no one seems to know who the airtag belonged to.

 

[Oiseaux]

I don't have an iPhone but I'm aware (I think) of how the air tags work. If the air tag was with Jack, surely it'll need the paired phone to tell you where it is? So if it was paired to Jack's phone and say he had the air tag in his pocket, surely it's of no use? Don't air tags work to locate the thing/person they're attached to? I'm perhaps misunderstanding but I'm not seeing the relevance of this..... If it's paired to Jack's phone.
IMO.

Infohuntah's explanation was a good one! To add a little more context on how an AirTag works, for those unfamiliar with them:

-An AirTag essentially makes an item (whatever it's attached to or inside) trackable - just like a person or device - via Find My. It shows up the same, but on a different tab labeled "items." People use them to track their purse, keys, car, pets, etc, both because you can check their location, and also because you can make the AirTag beep to help find the attached item.

-The owner of an AirTag can track their own AirTag via the Find My app on their phone. In addition, the owner can share the AirTag with another person, allowing them (but nobody besides those two) to track it on their own Find My app.

-An AirTag's trackability can be impacted if the battery dies (a year+ in my experience), if the AirTag is damaged/destroyed, or if the AirTag is in a location where there aren't other iPhones in the vicinity. An AirTag doesn't have its own connection to the Internet; it sort of borrows connections from passing iPhones to ping and update its location, and shows its location at the last ping on Find My and the time it was last seen by the network. As a result, an AirTag that isn't able to "borrow" a connection (like in a remote area) could move around indefinitely without being detected on Find My.

-An AirTag that isn't moving, but is still functioning, in a remote area could potentially be dormant for a long time, then update its location unexpectedly if an iPhone passes by it and it suddenly gets a connection.


I hope this helps answer some questions or dispel some confusion that might be out there.

 

[Oiseaux]

I might be dating myself a bit, but here's an analogy to help understand how AirTags work in practice...remember how things were growing up before cell phones?

Imagine a kid walking around their town on a weekend. Their parents want to know where they are, but land lines are the only phones available, so the kid stops in each time they pass one of their friends' houses to say "can I use your phone to call my parents and let them know where I am?"

As a result, the kid's parents know where the kid was at a certain time, and they know where the kid is if they've just called. But if the kid walks down a street where they don't have any friends, they might go for an hour without updating their parents as to their location. Until they get to their next friend's house and call again, their parents won't know where they are.

In this analogy,
The AirTag = the kid
Passersby = the friends' parents
Passersby's iPhones = the land lines
Find My = The kid's parents

This is either gonna suddenly make it really clear, or make it so much worse.

 

[SimplyCass]

some thoughts/musings about the AirTag thing

- AirTags have evolved over the years. It was first released in 2021. it wasn't until iOS 17 (September 2023) that Apple offered an option to 'share' the tag info/location with another user.
- Jack's iPhone 11 (released in 2019) was eligible to upgrade iOS 17, but it's not clear if he was the kind to upgrade right away/be current on firmware.
- I've done some testing. To use Apple's 'AirTag share' feature, both phones/devices must be on at least iOS 17.
- iOS 17 was only available to phones released in 2018 or later (iPhone XR/XS/XS Max).
- all this to say that the articles appear that Jack was not using the official Apple 'AirTag share' feature, since the family appears to be relying on LE or Apple to provide such info; they don't mention that they have access on their devices.
- AirTag is IP67 rated, which makes it dust and water resistant. Additionally, there are any number of little cases and third party accessories to protect the AirTag further.
- There is no way to clip an AirTag to a set of keys. He must have put it in some kind of case. it's a completely round, smooth, oversized button.
- I'm a little confused about the type of keys that Jack was carrying. are they house keys or car keys? Did Jack drive/own a car? The articles make a point of saying that Jack was demonstrating them as a response to his father having lost a key fob that was expensive to replace.

Share an AirTag or other item in Find My on iPhone

Share an AirTag in Find My so you won’t receive unwanted separation alerts.

support.apple.com

the main AirTag screen in the 'Find my' app. In the middle you can see 'share'


when you want to add someone to 'share' the tag with


what happens when you try to share the AirTag with someone who isn't on IOS 17.

These screenshots are from an iPad Pro 10.5" on iOS 17.7 attempting to share the tag with an iPhone SE (1st gen) on IOS 15.7.

 

[twomoresmores]

Thank you everyone for the air tag info. I didn't realise they can be shared with someone. My only real experience of someone use them is for example with a pet, if the pet was to wander and get lost. The owner of the pet, iPhone and air tag can find the pet in the event of pet and owner being separated. My query was around Jack having both the iPhone AND the air tag on him. Unless someone else can see his phone to see where the air tag (and he) is then the system doesn't work in this instance. Unless he'd shared the device, and therefore his location, with someone else.
IMO.

 

[Konstantin]

If the airtag was not registered to Jack's Apple ID, as it seems not to have been according to Apple, then Apple would not be able to access it. Maybe it was a new airtag and he had not registered it or not properly, and his mum thought it could produce more answers than it could in reality. You can't share an airtag unless you register it to your account and since Apple is saying it was not registered then he could not have shared it.

 

[infohuntah]

If the airtag was not registered to Jack's Apple ID, as it seems not to have been according to Apple, then Apple would not be able to access it. Maybe it was a new airtag and he had not registered it or not properly, and his mum thought it could produce more answers than it could in reality. You can't share an airtag unless you register it to your account and since Apple is saying it was not registered then he could not have shared it.

Just to clarify so we're all on the same page. Apple have not said it was not registered. Apple haven't commented beyond saying it's difficult with privacy laws to reveal this kind of information. It was the police who suggested it "wasn't registered correctly" whatever that means (note: factually, they're wrong here. It's either registered, or not registered) and since Jack showed his mum that he could find it in the house using Find My to make the airtag give off an audible noise to help find it, that means it was registered. To who? That's the question.

There was a dailymail article about this situation: Catherine (Jack's mother) said that the police's latest statement two weeks ago was that the AirTag had been 'registered to Jack's ex-girlfriend's account' which is why they couldn't locate it.

'But I (Jack's mother) actually contacted her this weekend just to verify that and she said, 'No that's not true, I didn't register it',' Catherine revealed. 'So we just can't get a straight answer.' Link to article here.

Now, assuming the ex-girlfriend is telling the truth and I've got no reason to doubt her, the airtag will be likely registered to Jack's Apple account which means the posts above are right, without the phone, it's useless. And if you had the phone, the airtag may not be far away anyway.

So I'll move onto another part of the story (in the same article) that I find either strange or a total coincidence depending on how you interpret it. Jack set off by bus at 8.20pm and at 10.45pm, he texted his mother that they had moved to a house party in Hotwells. 'All good, keys are safe,' he wrote (source is the article linked above).

Two things stand out. 1) He wasn't originally at the house party, "they" whoever "they" are, had "moved to a house party". And 2) The text to his mother about the keys being safe. To me, it's either total coincidence that he should mention his keys being safe, only for them along with Jack and all belongings on his person to go missing the very next night.

I suppose the point I'm getting to, is that this was a multi layered night with multiple decisions made rather than a simple case where the missing person had no contact with people. Jack was with family, then on the bus (presumably with other members of the public), then with a friend(s) and then at a party with others, then 400 cars in the area. On the surface, it should have been difficult for Jack to go missing in the first place (my objective opinion of course).