Last sight of missing stag party Scot Liam
Pictures show him less than an hour after he vanished
THE family of a Scot who vanished during a stag party in Germany have released footage of his last known steps in a desperate bid to trace him.
The grainy images were taken by CCTV camera 50 minutes after Liam Colgan, 29, disappeared from a bar in the Reeperbahn red light district of Hamburg at 1.30am on February 10.
The Inverness postman had been in the city for his brother Eamonn’s stag party, which he helped to organise, and was due to have been best man at the wedding.
A city-wide search was launched by his friends and police – but has so far been unsuccessful.
The full video, taken at 2.20am, has not been released. But Mr Colgan’s family said it shows the missing man falling down a flight of stairs in the entrance to a wellknown publishing house before being helped up by a passer-by.
It goes on to show him trying to get into the building, before walking towards a nearby park.
A witness account claims the same person was seen helping him into the park, after which it is believed he fell over again.
Other witnesses have described seeing a ‘confused’ Scot heading north into the city later.
Mr Colgan’s family said the images, the only ones to show him after his disappearance from the Hamburger Veermaster Bar, give searchers fresh hope.
On Facebook, policeman Eamonn, 33, said yesterday he fears his brother may have a head injury and could have lost his memory as a result of a fall.
He wrote: ‘We fear that he may have hurt himself, that there is a possibility that he has lost memory or be confused and that he is probably very lonely. There’s a chance something happened to him that scared him.
‘We don’t know why he’s not able to find himself back to us and are sure he would do that if he could. We do not know whether and how he has come to this.’
Eamonn, who has postponed his wedding next week to fiancee Susan Dolan, flew back to Hamburg after his brother’s disappearance and has spoken to potential witnesses and put up posters.
Missing persons charity the Lucie Blackman Trust is helping co-ordinate the search effort. It said it had received an unprecedented amount of calls and emails providing information.
Hamburg Police said they are sifting through hundreds of hours of CCTV footage, as well as other intelligence.
We reported last week that a man matching the description of Mr Colgan was seen in a railway 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 he had been on the platform but reboarded the train.
Police have said three bakery employees in the area said they had recognised him from posters.
There was an alleged sighting in a Lidl supermarket car park on Thursday. Another witness claims to have seen him in St Pauli, 600 yards from the Reeperbahn, at 2am on the day he vanished.
Hamburg Police said yesterday two more witnesses have since come forward, claiming to have seen Mr Colgan at the weekend in Buxtehude, where the family is currently focusing the search.
Eamonn said: ‘We don’t know and can’t explain where Liam is currently. The uncertainty is very difficult to bear.
‘What we know is that leaving the bar without telling anyone is completely untypical behaviour.
‘Liam has an extremely deep relationship with his family and friends.
‘There’s a chance he won’t be wearing the same clothes he wore on Saturday when we saw him last time.’
Pictures released by police from the night he vanished show Mr Colgan wearing a straw hat, grey hoodie and leather jacket. He is described by officers as being ‘heavily intoxicated’.
An online appeal had raised more than £9,000 by last night.
The campaign has been backed by Inverness-born film star Karen Gillan and footballer Willo Flood, of Mr Colgan’s favourite team, Dundee United.
‘We fear he may have hurt himself’ ‘Completely untypical’