His disappearance has sparked one of the biggest search operations the Island has ever seen with teams utilising some of the world’s most sophisticated technologies and rescue tactics.
Jack Maguire reports…
The official search
POLICE and their partner agencies have been utilising some of the world’s most sophisticated technology, as well as skilled personnel from across Europe, in the operation to find Mr Lynch.
Senior officers have been in contact with police search advisers in the UK during the investigation. This weekend a search and rescue specialist from the UK College of Policing was due to touch down in the Island to consult investigators working on the operation.
The investigation has involved one of the largest co-operations between emergency agencies in recent times. Agencies involved have included the police, ambulance, Jersey Fire and Rescue, the Jersey Search and Rescue volunteer team, Ports of Jersey, Normandy Rescue, Channel Islands Air Search, honorary police, British Red Cross and St John Ambulance. The Fire and Rescue Service also cancelled all non-essential work and drafted in part-time and retired staff to help with the search.
Since Mr Lynch went missing in the early hours of Saturday morning, police officers, under the leadership of Detective Chief Inspector Lee Turner, have conducted house to house inquiries and spoken to numerous Islanders who believe they may have seen Mr Lynch in the hours before he disappeared. Officers have also searched properties and outbuildings in and around St Lawrence and towards the north, east and west of where he was last seen.
Earlier this week, around 4,000 leaflets were dropped to Island homes earlier this week asking residents them to look out for him.
According to police, there were around nine sightings of Mr Lynch in the immediate hours after he was dropped off by a taxi at the junction of Rue and Ruette d’Avranches at around midnight on Friday. On Wednesday evening police said there may have been two more sightings during Friday night in St Lawrence and St John but they were currently being verified.
Det Chief Insp Turner explained how sightings become validated.
‘If the sighting is corroborated by other sightings or information, by interviewing the witnesses, potential use of CCTV. It depends on the sighting, some you can be more certain of than others depending on the corroborating factors,’ he said.
Detective Superintendent Stewart Gull told the JEP that search teams, which have included up to 73 professionals from across the emergency agencies, have covered an area of four square miles in and around the Six Roads area in St Lawrence.
Special dive teams have carried out searches in bodies of water at Tamba Park, Waterworks Valley, St John’s Manor as well as ponds in private grounds. Members of Jersey’s Fire and Rescue Service have also been involved in shallow-water searches in streams and brooks.
Specialist sonar equipment has also been sent over from the Humberside Police force which is used to check large bodies of water. The hi-tech equipment emits pulses of sound waves which bounce back off objects and allow the camera to develop an underwater picture in murky and deep water.
The Island’s police dogs have been deployed and night-vision cameras have been used in evening and early morning searches.
On at least two occasions the Channel Islands Air Search plane has been involved in sky-to-ground surveillance as has a drone.
Gold command meetings
SINCE his disappearance senior figures from across the emergency agencies have been attending gold command meetings twice daily chaired by Detective Superintendent Stewart Gull at police headquarters at Rouge Bouillon.
‘We have a strategic overview. The gold groups role is to ensure that there are adequate responses made available, we are responsible for media output and we are responsible for assessing the community impact,’ Det Supt Gull said.
‘We assess the impact on the community often through social media channels and respond through different areas of communication to keep them informed. We are also concious of the welfare of staff involved.’
The public search
NEARLY 5,000 Islanders have joined a Facebook group dedicated to co-coordinating unofficial search parties to find Mr Lynch.
The group, which is called Find Adrian– Islanders Willing to Help with the Search!, was set up earlier this week and was acting as a forum for Islanders to share their ideas on where to look for him.
A Twitter profile called @FindAdrianLynch has also been set up.
Det Supt Gull said volunteers can present the police ‘with an extra challenge’ and urged them to help in other ways.
‘We cannot stop people going out and searching, if walkers and runners are around we would ask them to keep their eyes out for anything. The best thing for people to help us is by continuing to check their back premises in case he is holed up somewhere on their land.’
The 20 year-old electrician had been out enjoying a Christmas party with colleagues at the Merton Hotel the night he disappeared. The Islander got into a taxi and travelled back towards his home in St Mary. He got out of the car at the junction of La Rue and Ruettes d’Avranches in St Mary – about a mile from his home – something police say was not uncommon for him to do.
Mr Lynch’s reported movements after that were sporadic and police say that from the evidence they have gathered Mr Lynch, who is believed to have been intoxicated but ‘steady on his feet’, appeared to be ‘confused and disorientated’. His wallet and phone were found near to where he was dropped off and his belt was found in the garden of a property a short distance from where he was last seen near Bon Air Stables.
