Missing Gary Tweddle Book Part 17 – CHAPTER 4: BLUE MOUNTAINS MASSIVE SEARCH

The next morning daylight of Wednesday 17th July 2013, an immediate and extensive search was officially sprung into operation.   This was ultimately co-ordinated by local Blue Mountains Police Rescue (nearby Katoomba-based) with the assistance of volunteers from the NSW State Emergency Service, Rural Fire service volunteers and experienced local bushwalking clubs’ members familiar with the area.

NSW Police Senior Constable Stephen De Jong (41) from the riot squad took charge of the land and air search for Gary Tweddle.  Gary is still out there waiting for us, there are 200 people looking,” he posted on his Facebook page.

Senior Constable De Jong (centre) from the riot squad briefs officers prior to recommencing the search for Gary Tweddle.  Picture: Matthew Sullivan

Senior Constable De Jong to the media during the police search:
“Gary is still out there waiting for us, there are 200 people looking.  We have searched the cliffs and gullies with choppers, abseilers and
bushwalkers.  It’s minus five (Celsius) up top with the wind (factor). There is no sign of a down scale (in the search) yet.”

Supportive volunteer State Emergency Services (SES) experienced local searchers co-ordinated with local police rescue authorities to systematically find Gary ASAP.  The tall bloke wearing is with Police Rescue as his white overall ‘fatigues’ under his jacket reveals.

Also, Gary’s girlfriend Anika Haigh quickly initiated a dedicated Facebook page entitled “Have you seen Gary Tweddle?“

Photos from her dedicated Facebook page captured at the time

Ms Haigh made desperate pleas for people to come forward with information. “My best friend has been taken from me and it’s so hard. It’s horrible, I just miss him so much. My heart aches, it hurts, I didn’t even know I had these emotions.”
Gary’s father David Tweddle on Gary’s girlfriend Anika Haigh Facebook page said the family, along with hundreds of State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers and police, were still scouring more than 14 sq km of rugged bushland near the Fairmont Resort in Leura where the British-born IT salesman, 23, went missing.
David Tweddle said the family was indebted to police and volunteers looking for his son.
“I do not think there are enough words in any vocabulary to say thank you to the hundreds of volunteers that have given their weekend to find Gaz.  The police have been unbelievably amazing and the Fairmont Resort could not have done more, it is truly breathtaking to see and experience all the help and support we are receiving.”

Gary’s girlfriend’s Facebook page ended up attracting more than 4,500 likes, such was the mystery and community intrigue in both the Blue Mountains and back in Sydney (and the UK) about his sudden unexplained disappearance.
The rugged area around The Fairmont Resort in Leura is situated on a wild plateau above Jamison Valley with its extensive 600+ metre deep escarpment cliff-line adjacent, featuring alternative headlands and incised gorges covered in dense natural bushland.

Aerial View of the Fairmont Resort and Spa at the top of the image, juxtaposed atop the incised plateau edge above the deep rugged chasm of the Jamison Valley to the south below.

The above aerial photo is more for media drama telling copy-pasted from Google Maps.
It is irrelevant, and only contradicts the known evidentiary reality of Gary’s eyewitness accounts of Gary’s last movements that police had at the start of their search operation.  Essentially, Gary didn’t go here where the above photo shows, instead he was sighted running along Sublime Point Road, situated well of southwest (left) of this photo.

 

As an aside,  this particularly wild edge of the Jamison escarpment is pitch black at night and inaccessible.  It is the site of historic but failed Gladstone Colliery (1885-86).
Some local experienced hikers will be aware of the Gladstone Pass track that was a walking link between the mine from defunct Gladstone village where the miners lived around what became Gladstone Road.  However, Gladstone Pass is an old unmaintained and extremely difficult graded track with exposure risk.  Gladstone Pass starts behind the Fairmont Resort off Fairmont Place along Lillian’s Bridge Track and from an non-signposted  narrow bush track off to the south.
Here’s what used to be at the old Gladstone village where the miners lived:

The old farm at 23 Everglades Avenue.  Developers with council backing have since destroyed the heritage fabric of this heritage site, now unrecognisable.

A week after his disappearance from a Blue Mountains Resort Gary’s family was still holding out hope he will be found alive.  But just three days the NSW Police scaled down the search.
This search had become the largest in Blue Mountains history at the time, in terms of the numbers of people searching.

The original leaflet collected by the author in August 2013.  Note his height, but NOT dark jeans that the police claim, but BLUE jeans.   

Over many weeks over 1000 searchers, police, SES volunteers and locals scoured more than fourteen square kilometres (roughly 4km x 4km) of rugged and dense bushland near the Fairmont Resort and the Sublime Point Escarpment.
Gary had not been heard from since his mobile phone had switched off or run out of battery at 12:30 am Wednesday 17th July 2023.   It is likely the latter due his contact use of it at the time to call his colleagues plus the need to have had the phone’s torch light constantly on in the pitch blackness. 
In an interview with Fairfax Media Ms Haigh said she had lost her best friend.
”My best friend has been taken from me and it’s so hard. It’s horrible, I just miss him so much. My heart aches, it hurts, I didn’t even know I had these emotions. ‘He is one of the most kind, caring, loving, and passionate person that I know and he is extremely determined,” Ms Haigh said. “He is a very loved person and we are touched and overwhelmed by all the friends an family that have come and helped in this situation.”

In a post on Facebook written earlier, his father David Tweddle said the family had still not given up hope. He also thanked the hundreds of people involved in the search.

He wrote: “These people have risked their health to work on this, abseiling 200m (650ft) cliff faces, going places that no human has been for tens of years.”  His father cited a previous case where bush walker Jamie Neale was found after being missing in the same region for 12 days.  But he said that was in “very different” circumstances and his son did not have the same resources.

“The New South Wales police will continue to search forever if that is what it takes, we will never give up hope,” he added.

The NSW Police borrowed the relevant information on its own Facebook page some 12 days later, thus:

NSW Police Force Facebook Post:

29 July 2013
“Have you seen Gary Tweddle?

NSW Police are appealing for public assistance, as part of #MissingPersonsWeek, to locate missing 23-year-old, Gary Tweddle, last seen in the Blue Mountains earlier this month.

Gary Tweddle, was seen leaving the Fairmont Resort, Blue Mountains at Leura in the early hours of Tuesday 16 July.

The Cremorne man had been staying at the resort for a work conference. Mr Tweddle has not been heard from or seen since and police now hold serious concerns for his welfare.

Police from Blue Mountains LAC – NSW Police Force have coordinated a major search for him, which has centred on dense bushland where he was last seen.

Police will continue to search for Mr Tweddle as a missing person.

Mr Tweddle is described as being of Caucasian appearance, 165-170cm tall, medium build, brown eyes with short brown hair.

At the time of his disappearance he was wearing blue jeans, a black jacket and checked shirt.

Missing Persons Week began yesterday (Sunday, 28 July 2013) and will run until Saturday, 3 August 2013. NSW Police will profile a missing person every day of the campaign.

Each year 35,000 people are reported missing in Australia – one person every 15 minutes.  In NSW last year, 12 409 people were reported missing, of those 84 remain missing.

Over $210,000 in free advertising space for the Missing Persons Week poster has been donated by Outdoor Media Association (OMA).”

It is noted in the above excerpt that Police still hadn’t verified Gary’s actual height at 170 cm.   We also note again that when Gary was eventually found (by fluke after the search had been officially called off) he was not wearing a jacket.

We also note that some of our hyperlinks to websites that were provided are not reliable in perpetuity, and also that media links now tend to impose access fire walls, so denying access without re-paid subscription.   That media news is now dated, and in any case we have obviated any need for readers to go source the old news, since in this article we have integrated much of the news articles into distinct thematic chapters with appropriate chapter headings and adding insightful critique and analysis.

Gary’s father David, a vice-president with the same company his son worked for, flew out to Australia from his home in Berkshire in England in the first week of Gary going missing to help with the search effort.  Similarly Gary’s mother interstate, and his girlfriend working in Queensland.   Gary’s family galvanised to help the search effort find him and to just be there.

David said the family was indebted to police and volunteers looking for his son. “I do not think there are enough words in any vocabulary to say thank you to the hundreds of volunteers that have given their weekend to find Gaz,” he said.

David Tweddle: 

“The police have been unbelievably amazing and the Fairmont Resort could not have done more, it is truly breathtaking to see and experience all the help and support we are receiving.”

David Tweddle, father of 23 year old Gary Tweddle from Reading, England. Whilst contributing as he could to the search effort, David stayed locally accessible to the search effort in the Blue Mountains.

A week after his disappearance from a Blue Mountains Resort his family is still holding out hope he will be found alive.  Father David said the family, along with hundreds of SES volunteers and police, are still scouring more than 14 sq km of rugged bushland near the Fairmont Resort in Leura where the British-born IT salesman, 23, went missing.

David added saying to the media that the family was indebted to police and volunteers looking for his son.

But by 26th July, some ten days after Gary had gone missing in freezing conditions, and the NSW Police extensive search failing to find any trace, David admitted he believed that his son was dead.

The change of circumstances in the search means that rescuers were now looking for a body, rather than someone who might have been able to survive the unforgiving conditions during which temperatures have dropped below zero at night  (down to minus 5 degrees Celsius factoring in wind chill).

Mr Tweddle compared Gary’s plight with that of British bushwalker Jamie Neale, who was found alive after going missing for 12 days in the Blue Mountains at the same time of year four years ago.   Mr Neale was wearing warm clothes and had supplies in a backpack, whereas Gary, who had earlier been drinking with his friends before deciding to take a walk from the resort hotel, was wearing just a shirt and jeans.

David said in a farewell message to his son which he posted on Facebook that he loved him very much – but told followers that what had been a search and rescue operation conducted by police and fire service officials had now been re-classified as a ‘recovery operation’.

In an emotional message to his son, who moved to Australia four years ago to start a new life and had won a top job at the technology firm, Mr Tweddle wrote:

‘I miss and love you unconditionally, Gaz. ‘I am so proud of all you have achieved at Oracle’ – the technology company – ‘and with your private life. The depth of this pride is infinite. You are a true star in all our lives.

“We have had so many incredible times together in UK, ZA (South Africa) and Goa to name a few and there is nothing I would not give for 1 more second of time with you.
Money, possessions and material becomes irrelevant now.  It’s all about time, so my closing message to you my friends is cherish every second you are fortunate enough to have with the people you love.
Waste not one moment, be available and show love at every opportunity. I love you so much son, so, so much. Dad X.”

Mr Tweddle and Gary’s stepmother were then expected to return to the UK at the weekend or early next week.

After ten straight days of extensively searching the surrounding area around the Fairmont Hotel and into thick bushland including by foot, vehicles and by helicopters, Police Senior Constable De Jong decided to transition the missing person search into a (body) recovery operation’ on Friday 26 July 2013.

By the 12th August 2013, media reported that the search for Gary had been officially called off.
The following calendar shows the key dates of the search.

The 2013 Calendar: