Help my adult son is missing

[Aliceinunderland]

My son is 23 and he has been missing since 11th September. I reported him missing the same day as it was out of character for him to miss work. He walked out of the house with nothing other than his bank card. His phone hasn't been turned on since the night he left.
So far I have:
Contacted all of his friends and contacts
Done a social media campaign
Battled with the police and filed two official complaints due to failures to investigate
Worked with missing people uk to do a media campaign
Handed out posters in the area that we have had one sighting. Unfortunately this is not our local area so it is difficult to go every day.

What else can I do? I've emailed and called every service I can find to share his photograph. Is there anything else anyone can suggest? I'm beyond devastated and will try anything at this point. Thank you for reading.

Perhaps someone's already suggested this (haven't read every post) but have you tried the Salvation Army? They do a family tracing service: https://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/family-tracing

I’m sure you have contacted them but here’s a link anyway, just in case

https://www.look4them.org.uk/

Im also agreeing with the people who say to contact all the charities who work with homeless people. I volunteer for such a charity ( not in your area unfortunately) and in my city all the charities are linked very closely. We have a hub that we all work out together, staff have each other phone number and give daily update.

The police often come to speak to us looking for vulnerable missing persons. And our service users are pretty good at looking out for people who are new to rough sleeping / being street homeless, they will give them advice, try to help them ( even if some of it is not very good advice ).

Of course some will try to exploit others, but mainly if they have money or drugs and your son had neither.

From what you say my guess is that he’s mostly likely to be sofa surfing somewhere . In my city the charities know everyone who is rough sleeping regularly and he would have been spotted . I don’t now if it’s the same in London as you have a lot more people.

Now the weather is getting colder he / whoever he is dossing with are more looked to turn up and use services .

Id go to all the homeless services and ask them if they will let you give out
Leaflets for their service users. Don’t mention the police on the leaflet, stress it’s a worried family looking for him because he’s unwell and needs his medication / never gone missing before etc.

if he is rough sleeping the best people to help you find him are other rough sleepers.

I see you have changed your surname, could your son have reverted to the previous one? It might be worth mentioning that in any notices or requests for info. It's also worth asking agencies to look at records with the surname spelled "Tate" (I have a surname that can be spelled 3 different ways, and have had hospital records mixed up with someone with the same first name as me and a different spelling of my surname.

As he has had MH problems in the past, and was about to have a big life change (leaving home), that may have triggered a downturn. You could try getting in touch with mental health inpatient services in case he's been admitted. I'm sure someone on here will know what the Luton psych hospital is called.

If he had decided to try and contact his father, would the train route have taken him via Luton? That might be worth exploring.

You must be so worried, OP. I hope you find him safe and sound soon.

You may have already tried, but could you approach a national paper or local tv news for help maybe?

I really hope you find him soon xx

I'm so sorry OP. My 24yr old DS went missing three and a half years ago and I know the pain.

Sending your strength.

From Google maps it shows a large lorry park near Markyate and it’s at a junction of the M1.
It’s possible that he might have got a lift in one of them.

I hope he contacts you soon x

Yes this is what we are doing at the moment. I'm not sure how long we will be able to keep going up though because of the expense and to be honest, every time we leave to go home without him I fall apart again.

Thank you so much for this. We are doing this right now

OP - Unless things have changed, ATM's have cameras in them. Pinhole ones but it could be used by the Police to verify it was him using the card.

Good luck

Oh I really wish I'd have thought about this when we were at the hospital yesterday. We've had our surname for so long I forget we've changed it. I'll call the hospital and check. They were very helpful yesterday and took lots of posters, even the ambulance staff took some. For some reason the police hadn't felt the need to share his missing profile with the hospital where we had a potential sighting but that's just the lack of care we've experienced from them already.

I think I didn't explain my son and his dad's relationship very well. They have had recent contact with each other, they just don't have a good relationship. If my son wanted to go there then his dad would just pick him up or send money for him to get a train. There were no trains running at the time he walked out of the house though.

Well it's just us trying to find logic in an illogical situation I think. We know that bank activity was detected initially in Strood (Kent) then Acton (London) then St Alban's. We then had the confirmed sighting of him in Luton. This was over a 2 week period. So we tracked these points on a map which showed a trail that follows the M1. The reason we think he's walking is because of the time it takes to walk between these areas according to Google maps. We were just trying to hypothesise about where he would go next but of course I don't know if he intends to keep moving or if Luton was his intended destination.

Have you tried all the Luton churches? Lots of churches have members who help street people (clothes, food etc). Perhaps go on line, do a search on Luton churches and phone the contact numbers. I do hope that you find your son soon. Big 🫂

Sorry if I have missed it, do you know what he was doing at the petrol station?
Was he getting money/snacks?
Could he has been in a vehicle parked off camera or does the camera show him walking away?

I'm so sorry, I can't even begin to imagine the pain. I really hope he is found soon and gets the support he needs. I also hope you and your family are being supported at this difficult time.

I've shared the facebook post. What a nightmare for you. I hope you hear from him soon.

Wishing you luck finding him as soon as possible. This is every parent's worst nightmare.

Lots of love to you OP and to your beautiful son.

Thinking of you, op, and hoping you hear from him soon.

Have you tried places further on like Milton Keynes, Northampton, etc?

If you know his GP it might be worth making them aware he has gone missing, has mental health issues and is vulnerable and details of missing person campaign. They probably can't tell you if found but it may help put an alert on the system and a flag as vulnerable adult, police should have done it but GP may be more reliable.

With Psych hospital generally due to shortage of beds you stay in normal hospital first then when a bed becomes available could be anywhere in country but they should tell GP.

So sorry op I'm not far from Medway myself so will share your Facebook appeal to local groups that haven't had it posted already. I hope now Kent live have picked it up that Kent police will feel they need to be seen to be doing more.

You say on Fb that there was a possible hospital sighting of your son, but need more Police support to investigate? Do you mean like accessing hospital records and cctv footage? I would definitely get the police to class your sun as vulnerable (his past mental health as well as ADHD surely put him in this category?)

Have you tried bbc south east today news and Meridian? I've seen many local missing persons reports featured before and they have quite a far reach in the south east counties. I don't know what the local tv news service for Luton is but it would be worth contacting them as well. Do you have friends as well as family members who could help with this kind of thing? As I know it's going to be very time consuming and only so much you can do yourself in any given hours, especially when you're out on the ground searching in Luton.

I would get as many young people you know involved with things like sharing tiktok posts, his friends perhaps? It has a huge reach with young people, so much more so than other social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc. Things can go viral and become a frenzy though, with people turning amateur sleuths, that could have it's negative sides if it hampers any formal investigations. On the other hand, just having the appeal info and photo of your son shared around by people in Luton on tiktok could help with any possible sightings locally. I know from my daughter when a local teen went missing recently they were sharing the information around and it spread like wild fire on tiktok, Snapchat as well actually. There were concerns about the young girl being recruited by county lines, it's becoming more and more prevalent unfortunately. I don't know the full details but thankfully she was found, and there were mental health issues involved in why she disappeared.

You say your son's always on his phone at home and likes tiktok, can you access his account? Same for things like Discord or other apps he may have used to communicate with people. His search histories, emails etc. as others have said could all help with information, I don't know if your internet provider or the app / web companies themselves could give you any information or access if the police aren't looking at them? Someone up thread mentioned the websleuths website, I agree there will be people including professionals on there who could help with knowledge about tech companies and accessing your son's online history, you can also post an appeal on there too xx

You could set up a crowd funding page to help with the cost of searching for him yourself. Then share it on the FB page. If lots of people chip in a fiver it can amount to a fair bit.

Gosh, this is every parents nightmare.

Sending you love and strength OP.

I'm in Northampton, so if he was last seen in Luton, then Milton Keynes and Northampton could have sightings. Especially if he might be following the M1 to head north.
I'm happy to share his photo and info if you think it might help.

I’m so sorry you’re going through this.

Its very possible that his MH is stopping him from trying to find you because he feels he’s made his bed and now has to lie in it type thing.
Or his MH is so severe that he cannot think about going home to get help.

I would create a poster with your number on and put these in the areas where he may have been seen.

I would send these to every homeless shelter and ask them to put them up and to keep an eye out for him.

I’d also post these posters on various social media sites and ‘bump’ them regularly.

Unfortunately, he is unlikely to have social media and there are so many homeless men that people may not recognise him.
His appearance may have changed to, especially facial hair.

Putting posters in the homeless shelters and giving them to those that feed the homeless, will hopefully let him see it or a volunteer spot him and let you know/ask him to ring you.

I would also keep an eye on any arrests made as homeless people are more likely to commit a crime out of desperation.

The good news is that he’s been spotted and has checked his account.
Its fantastic that you are still putting money in so at least he is eating.

Good idea.

Any religious buildings or food bank type places are a good place to start.

Yes the picture you gave here looks different to one police are publishing, it might be worth giving picture below out too, most recent you have. A second photo might make places publicise too esp if with a bit of an update like sighting thought at hospital.

thinking of you
have you messaged his dad, you might have to @Aliceinunderland

I'm in one of the villages north of Milton Keynes so have shared one of the Facebook posts, hope you find him soon x