‘Sightings’ of stag do Liam as brother says: We’re not giving up
POLICE searching for a Scot who went missing during a stag do in Germany have had ten potential sightings of him – including one in a supermarket car park.
Liam Colgan was last seen by friends leaving a bar alone in the Reeperbahn red light district of Hamburg in the early hours of last Saturday.
The postman, from Inverness, had been in the city for his brother Eamonn’s stag party, which he helped to organise, and is due to be his best man in two weeks.
Though an initial search by his friends and police was unsuccessful, officers have said a second publicity drive has resulted in a string of potential leads in several areas of the city.
The search has been backed by Inverness-born film star Karen Gillan and Dundee United player Willo Flood, who took to Twitter and Instagram to urge fans to share their online appeal.
Eamonn Colgan, 33, a policeman, said: ‘We are remaining optimistic. We have lots of volunteers who have helped us put up posters and asked potential witnesses.
‘The message I am trying to spread now is for people all over the city to be vigilant as Liam could be anywhere. We are not just focusing on the Reeperbahn area.
‘Most of the sightings we have received are of a confused man matching Liam’s description. We are not giving up, that’s for sure.’
Yesterday, the Mail reported how a man matching the description of 29-year-old red-haired Mr Colgan was seen in a rail station in the suburb of Buxtehude 25 miles south-west of Hamburg city centre on Wednesday.
A scent picked up by a police sniffer dog that day also suggested the missing man had been on the platform but re-boarded the train at the same station.
Since then police have said three employees of a bakery in the area also told officers they recognised Mr Colgan from police posters on the same day. ‘A salesperson in a bakery said she might have seen him, the man also spoke English. A person tracker dog was used there on Wednesday,’ said police.
Detectives also said he was allegedly spotted in a Lidl supermarket car park on Thursday, while a further witness claims to have seen Mr Colgan in the St Pauli area of the city, 600yards from the Reeperbahn, at 2am on the day he vanished.
City police confirmed the missing man has been spotted near the Reeperbahn in CCTV footage in the hours after his disappearance.
They have released pictures of him on the night wearing a straw hat, leather jacket and a grey hoodie. He is described as being ‘heavily intoxicated’.
Officers have already searched the city’s canals and part of the River Elbe by boat in the hunt for Mr Colgan’s possessions, including his mobile which ran out of battery power during the evening he went missing, and his clothes.
A Gofundme page which was set up by friends to raise money for the search last night topped the £7,000 mark.
‘He could be anywhere’