Men Missing on a Night Out: Exploring the Geography of Fatal Disappearances to Inform Search Strategies

This report presents findings from a study of 96 fatal disappearances of men who were last seen ‘on a night out’. Rather than focusing on the personal attributes of a missing person, the missing on a night out study is grounded in the specific circumstances in which someone is reported missing. The men in the sample were aged between 16 and 62, with 71 per cent aged 25 or under. The winter months of December, January and February accounted for over half of all cases; six disappearances occurred after a work Christmas party, five after a New Year’s Eve celebration. In 89 per cent of the cases bodies were recovered from water: rivers, canals, lakes, the sea etc. Most were the result of an accident. 11 per cent of cases resulted in a body being found on land, after the individual died from a fall, hypothermia or a drugs overdose. There is evidence that the risk of fatality in these cases is very high compared to other types of missing incident.