Mother of missing student Jack O'Sullivan is filmed walking the route he was last seen taking in Bristol

The mother of a student who went missing six months ago has been filmed walking the route her son was last seen taking before he disappeared.

Catherine O'Sullivan is videoed walking and discussing the evening her son Jack vanished after leaving a party.

Jack, 23, was last seen at 3.15am on Saturday, March 2 in the area of Brunel Lock Road and Brunel Way, in Bristol.

Searches by police and the family have failed to yield significant answers - and his disappearance remains a mystery.

Catherine has been filmed retracing the steps her son took on CCTV with the videos posted on the 'Find Jack' campaign Facebook page.

Part one of the video is titled: 'Jack went to a party on Hotwell Rd Friday March 1st. He left the party at 2:53AM Saturday March 2. The following film picks up Jack's route from Macadam Way south of Cumberland basin.'

In the video, Catherine said: 'So, what we do know is that he's come along past the front of the restaurant and then he's carried on and then cut through these pillars, and then he's walked possibly through this car park or possibly on the road.

'He's picked up again then on the Create Centre building on the corner over there, there's a camera.

'That road was open, and this is where there was a stationary car after Jack had left this area. It just stopped in the middle of the road over there.

'This was about 10 or 15 minutes after Jack was seen. By then, he could have easily been picked up over there and brought back around here.

'There's a camera, which is on the corner of that building (Create Centre) below the red brick. That's what picked him up going around this corner.

'What we can only assume is that he carried on through here. There are lots of cameras all over here, but not all of them are working.

'We've got images of Jack and he's passing these railings coming in this direction. This is the point now where we know that he's here somewhere, but we don't see him again for about 8 minutes.

'We don't believe he's gone down there, because there is a camera at the end of there, and that doesn't pick up anything.

'I haven't been able to physically view it myself. So much has been missed that unless I can see it with my own eyes.

'When it is very dark, it's really poorly lit here (by canal under motorway bridge). It is quite creepy.

'As you go around this corner, it's really not pleasant. I never felt this was a possibility (the canal) because you'd have to get other this (the fence) to fall in. It's very dark, and when it is dark, it's pitch black here.

'When we've come down here at one in the morning, we've brought torches or used our phone torches.

'He's then entered the car park, but we can't be certain whether it was from this end.

'He could have walked along here and then thought 'hang on, this is wrong' and then gone back on himself, hence the time - obviously there was this lapse of time.'

Jack was unsure about going to the party because he barely knew anyone there, but his mother had encouraged him to go and meet new people as his friends from home had moved away.

He took the bus from his house in Flax Bourton to Bristol city centre to have drinks with three of his university friends at a Wetherspoons, before all four, two boys and two girls, ventured to a house party hosted by a girl on his law conversion course.

The University of Exeter graduate, who had moved back to Bristol for the law course, stuck with his group at the party on Hotwell Road, but at one point tumbled down the stairs and hit his head.

When a random partygoer joked about him having too much to drink, Jack shoved him in a brief clash, but this did not go further.

Jack texted his mum at 1.52am to say he was safe and planned to get a taxi and left the party an hour later, without saying goodbye to his female friend who was having a cigarette outside.

Catherine said: 'There are so many potential issues....to have been to a party and didn't know where he was and was drunk and in the vicinity of water.

'He's now crossed over from Hotwells, over the wooden bridge by the pump house, and he's come down where the Lockside restaurant is.

'If he hadn't chosen to be on the pavement side, he could have chosen to be on the Lockside of that. He's evaded a lot of potential issues.

'For me, I'm thinking he's cleared this, he's cleared that, and all this time, he seems to be getting himself out of scrapes, rather than more into it. To put himself up on that bridge.

'The end point of it, the police are thinking, is that he ended up in the water, but he'd have done a hell of a job getting there.

'Something like this (shrubbery area near the canal with no railings), to me, is really dangerous, and it's pitch black normally. There's no lighting here.

'You could wander, thinking 'I wonder what's over there,' and you could be down the side in an instant.

'The next time he's picked up is entering this car park from this angle. He's walked through here and passed these pillars.

'There weren't as many vehicles as there are now. These are the council vans.'

From having to trawl through CCTV and carry out searches herself to being denied access to crucial phone and Apple AirTag data, Jack's mother has become increasingly frustrated by Avon and Somerset Police's investigation.

Catherine hired a private investigator and called upon missing persons specialists in Northern Ireland and Scotland to help scour the near five-mile route he could have walked home along the busy A370 - something detectives failed to do.

Catherine added: 'There's a part of this that's a holding bay for council material. That is the security shop over there, and it's their cameras that picked him up.

'They've got him walking through here and walking straight across here and up onto the grass.

'This used to be more of a flowerbed, and I can see him moving to the side to avoid it.

'Then he's walked into the middle and we don't have any more footage because that's the angle that it cuts out.

'In my mind, down there is a very unsavoury area (second poorly lit bridge area). It's pitch black.

'He's off camera for about eight or nine minutes, and we can't be exact about what happened during that time.

'I try to put myself there all the time - what would Jack think, what would he have done, and what direction would he have taken? I never once considered he would be heading back into Hotwells.

'I can't be 100% sure why I can say that, but my gut feeling when I stood over there, was that he's gone up and tried to join the road above.

'For a long time, we had no evidence to suggest that, and it was just me and my feeling, but then we found him on camera.

'From much later on CCTV, he's come up and followed this road all the way to the top. He's gone up on this side because if he had been on the other side, the camera in the underground car park would have picked up his movements. At this distance, it hadn't picked anything up.'

While Catherine was forced to trawl through CCTV herself, she spotted a person - who she is adamant is her son - walking over Plimsol Bridge at around 3.25am, heading back in the direction of Bristol city centre.

When officers were alerted to this, they later uncovered a second clip showing someone walking along the Bennett Way slip road at around 3.38am.

Jack attempted to call his female friend who was still at the party at 3.24am. When the friend called back 10 minutes later, Jack answered but only said 'hello' before the call cut off.

His phone remained active on Find My Friends until 6.44am, lasting pinging on Granby Hill, and Catherine could hear the phone ringing through when she was calling him, indicating the device was still working.

He also took an Apple AirTag out with him, which was attached to his keys, but the family have been unable to access the data on the tracking device due to privacy laws.

Catherine continued: 'What we do know is, after the phone calls, his phone had various activity.

'A data usage at 4:39, which is another hour after he was seen at this point.

'At 5:40, his phone location was suggesting that he was two or three roads from here on Grampy Hill, at an address.

'We're told that that was approximate, but I don't understand why an approximate address would have a house number, and that's a question we haven't been able to have answered.'