From top: CCTV footage showing three men waiting outside Trevor’s Deely’s workplace. Gardai say the two men on the left are Trevor’s work colleagues; Trevor Deely



On April 7, Crimestoppers launched a renewed appeal for missing Trevor Deely.

“Forensically-enhanced’ CCTV footage was released showing a man standing outside the back entrance of Trevor’s work that Gardai now wished to question.

Some of the footage, however, had been used previously in a 2015 TV3 documentary and, in one screen grab, a second man (not Trevor) can be seen next to the person of interest.

Filmmakers David Lester Mooney and Mark Kilbride, having discovered this anomaly, then spotted a third person in another image (top).

This afternoon, David and Mark were contacted by a Garda officer who stated that these two new figures have “previously been identified” as Trevor’s work colleagues.

If this is correct, it throws into question certain accounts of that evening that we have been given since Trevor vanished and adds to the confusion that surrounds many aspects of this case.

The following is a timeline of relevant events since Trevor’s disappearance on December 8, 2000, detailing some discrepancies and raising a number of questions.

May, 1999: Trevor Deely, aged 21, starts work at Bank of Ireland Asset Management on Wilton Terrace.

Trevor is the son of senior Bord Bia official Michael Deely, originally from Loughrea and now living in Naas.

Trevor has two sisters, Pamela and Michele, and a brother Mark.

2000: Trevor moves into an apartment in the Renoir complex in Serpentine Avenue, Sandymount, Dublin 4. He shares the apartment with two female flatmates, Niamh and Sharon.

November, 2000: Trevor leaves for a holiday in Alaska. According to family and friends, he had previously met Karen, a girl from Alaska, while she was visiting Ireland.

Tuesday December 5, 2000: Trevor arrives back in Dublin. He catches a bus from Dublin Airport to Naas and stays for a short time. According to his father Michael Deely, Trevor told his parents that he would not be down the following weekend.

Wednesday December 6, 2000: Trevor returns to work at Bank of Ireland Asset Management.

Thursday December 7, 2000:

4.00 p.m: Trevor finishes work at Bank of Ireland Asset Management.

He later attends a drinks reception in Copper Face Jacks before the staff annual Christmas Party in the Hilton Hotel, Charlemont Place.

In ‘Without Trace,’ by Barry Cummins, it is reported that ‘in the afternoon’ Trevor visited his father’s office, in Mount Street, to collect contact lenses sent there by Trevor’s brother Mark, an optician. It is further stated that Trevor did not see his father Michael Deely during the visit as Mr Deely was out at the time visiting a number of locations as part of his job.

According to Michael Deely (Sunday Independent 23/12/2012) Trevor phoned him ‘that evening’ from his apartment in Ballsbridge to say that there was something wrong with the electricity and then phones back again to say he has spoken to the ESB and got the electricity fixed.

This account indicates that Trevor returned to his apartment in Ballsbridge before going out.

In the same interview, Michael Deely says that his final conversation with Trevor was over the phone when he was in Copper Face Jacks.

8.45 pm: Trevor and friends leave Copper Face Jacks for the Hilton Hotel in Charlemont Place.

11-11.30 pm: Trevor receives a call from his friend Glen Cullen, but it is too noisy to talk. The two friends miss each another when they call back.

Friday, December 8, 2000:

2 am: Trevor and friends leave the Hilton Hotel for Buck Whaley’s in Leeson Street.

3.35 am: Trevor arrives alone at the gate of his office in Wilton Terrace.

Security footage shows a man waiting outside the office for approximately half an hour before Trevor’s arrival. The man runs to talk to Trevor when he arrives at the gate and they have a brief conversation. Trevor then enters through the gate, which is locked but unchained.

In ‘Without Trace,’ it is stated that Trevor was let in the gate by a security guard, Peter: “A few minutes earlier Peter had taken the chains off the gate for delivery of internal post. Trevor thanked Peter for letting him in”.

3.36 am: Trevor speaks to his work colleague, Karl Pender, asking him if he has time for a cup of tea. According to Pender, he had something to do at the time and asked Trevor to wait.

3.37 am: Security footage shows the man who spoke to Trevor, standing outside the gate with another man. There is a third, possibly unconnected, figure behind them. [Gardai have said that two of these men were Trevor’s colleagues]

While waiting for Pender, Trevor logs on and sends an email. In subsequent interviews, Trevor’s family have described the contents of this email as ‘not significant’. He also leaves himself reminders of things to do the next day. After 10 minutes, the two men have coffee in the staff canteen before Pender returns to work.

4.03 am: Trevor leaves the office, carrying a corporate ACC bank golf umbrella described in some reports as navy and in others blue.

4.05 am: Trevor leaves a voicemail message for Glen Cullen. According to Glen, the message said: “‘Hi, Glen, I’ve missed you there. Just on my way home, all going good, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ Or words to that very close effect.” (IT 28/3/2015)

Glen also says that he and another friend Conor Loonan had arranged to meet up with Trevor the following evening in Thomas Fletcher’s pub in Naas.

However, according to Trevor’s father Michael Deely, quoted in the same article, Trevor had told his family when home on Tuesday, December 5, that he was going to stay in Dublin over the weekend and go Christmas shopping.

The Gardai did not seek to retrieve the mobile message left for Glen, on the basis that it was not relevant.

4.14 am. footage shows a man identified as Trevor walking past the AIB Bank on Haddington Road (now Milano’s pizza), a route which would bring him back to his apartment in Ballsbridge.

Subsequent passers-by include a man (30 seconds behind), followed by a young girl, and then by a couple. The couple are subsequently identified but say that they do not remember Trevor, or anything untoward.

9.30am: Trevor fails to turn up for work. No action is taken by Bank of Ireland.

Saturday December 9, 2000 – Sunday December 10, 2000:

No contact is made with Trevor by Michael, Ann, Mark or Pamela Deely with Trevor over the weekend. Michael Deely says “I wouldn’t be ringing him to find out how he was because he should have been working the next day.”

Trevor’s other sister Michele, then working in London, called his mobile “probably four times” over the weekend without knowing he was missing. She has stated that she believes his phone rang. Ultimately, the phone went dead.

It is not clear whether or not Glenn Cullen or Conor Loonan phoned Trevor when he failed to turn up at Thomas Fletcher’s pub in Naas as arranged on Saturday night.

Monday, December 11, 2000:

At some point during the day, Bank of Ireland phones Trevor’s parents’ home in Naas.

Trevor’s mother Ann Deely phones his father Michael, in Dublin, and his brother Mark, in Castlebar.

Mark Deely says that he immediately had a sixth sense that something was wrong, cancelled work and started to drive to Naas, according to The Irish Times piece.

In the same article, Michael Deely says that on being phoned by his wife he rang Trevor’s mobile and went to his apartment, but did not have a key to get in and no one answered when he rang the bell. Michael Deely subsequently returned to Naas.

Further In the same piece, it is stated that, after calling into Naas, Mark Deely went on to Dublin, arriving in the afternoon. He called first to Copper Face Jacks and then travelled out to Ballsbridge. The article does not state whether he entered Trevor’s apartment.

It also says that later that evening Mark Deely returned to Naas and, accompanied by Glen Cullen, reported Trevor’s disappearance to Naas Garda Station.

There appears to be some confusion as to the timing of the initial phone call to Ann Deely. In the Irish Times interview, Mark Deely said that his mother phoned him in Castlebar at 10.30 am. In his interview with the Sunday Independent (23/12/2012), Michael Deely says that his wife phoned him ‘in the afternoon’.

Tuesday, December 12, 2000: A search of Trevor’s route home is carried out by the Deely family and friends. The Grand Canal is searched by a Garda sub-aqua team.

December-January 2000: Searches for Trevor continue, organised by Mark Deely, who will not return to work until after Christmas. Michael Deely similarly will not return to work for six months after Trevor’s disappearance.

Flyers posted with Trevor’s picture are handed out and posted around the Ballsbridge/Dublin 2 area. Garda sub-aqua divers also search the Dodder river. No trace of Trevor is found.

Trevor’s friend Conleth Loonan, a CCTV expert, succeeds in sourcing AIB security footage showing Trevor passing the bank in Haddington Road. The footage was located only shortly before it was due to be destroyed.

December 23, 2012: Michael Deely gives an interview to the Sunday Independent regarding Trevor’s disappearance. This is the first interview to give any detailed information about the night of Trevor’s disappearance.

February-March 2015: The Irish Times carries a detailed three part series on Trevor’s disappearance, including interviews with his father, Michael Deely, his brother, Mark Deely, his sister, Michele Deely and his friend, Glen Cullen.

In the piece, Michele Deely, who was in London at the time of her brother’s disappearance, says:-

“Nothing has been found. There’s been zero: zero information or findings. I don’t believe people vanish. That makes no sense to me. That’s the most agonising thing. It actually starts to hurt your brain when you think about it.”

Michele also states, in relation to the fact that Trevor’s phone was never located or pinpointed via its network,

“I don’t accept that [the Garda] couldn’t have done more at the time,” Michele saysI know it wasn’t as advanced as today, but it was still the mobile-phone era: it wasn’t back in the day when there was nothing electronic or digital.”

The same year, journalist Donal McIntyre produces a documentary into the disappearance of Trevor Deely. The documentary includes a screen grab of CCTV footage from outside Trevor’s office, not previously released by Gardai.

The documentary mistakenly describes this footage as depicting Trevor entering the building. In fact it was taken shortly after Trevor had entered the building and shows the two men referred to above..

December 2016: It is reported that a new investigation is to be opened into the disappearance of Trevor Deely, and that a review of CCTV is also part of the investigation, with video footage of Trevor’s last known movements being sent to specialists in the UK for detailed forensic examination.

April 2017: It is reported that a UK company has been able to dramatically enhance relevant CCTV images leading to a suspicion that the man 30 seconds behind Trevor on Haddington Road may be the same as the man outside the building.

Detailed footage of the man outside the building – of a standard similar to the screen grab shown in the McIntyre documentary, but ending prior to the time of that screen grab – is released by Gardai showing Trevor talking to the man before he enters the building.

No clarification was provided regarding the relationship of this footage with the conversation with the security guard, Peter, reported by Barry Cummins to have taken place at the time of Trevor entering the building.

The footage does however corroborate Mr Cummins’ account (which referenced a chain having been taken off the gate by the security guard) insofar as it shows the chain merely looped across the gate.

The above timeline of events raises a number of questions.

Why has there been no attempt by Gardai to relate the ‘enhanced’ footage of the man met by Trevor on his way into the office with Barry Cummins’ account of the security guard ‘Peter’, encountered by Trevor at this very point?

Why has it been alleged that this footage was significantly ‘enhanced’ in circumstances where the Donal McIntyre documentary, broadcast some years earlier, shows a screen grab of footage similar in standard to that recently released?

Why has there been an attempt by Gardai to suggest that this ‘enhanced’ footage shows that the man in the footage outside Trevor’s workplace was the same man behind him on Haddington Road when an examination of this footage shows nothing to support this?

Why has there been no mention of Trevor’s two colleagues outside the gate before now? As they are standing next to the person of interest could they add more details about him?

Why has the focus, to date, been almost exclusively on the period before, rather than after, Trevor was last seen?

Why has the investigation into his disappearance apparently ignored the possibility that he might have safely returned to his apartment in Ballsbridge on the night in question?

According to Barry Cummins, Trevor’s flatmates were both away on holiday. On the night of Trevor’s disappearance, there was a taxi strike, making it difficult to get into work the next day.

We know that there were difficulties in entering Trevor’s apartment on Monday. When did this entry finally occur and by whom?

Did Gardai carry out a full search of the apartment and what, if anything, was there to convince them that Trevor had not returned home?

And, as highlighted by Trevor’s sister, Michele, why was there no apparent attempt to track his mobile phone following his call to Glen Cullen at Baggot Street Bridge?

Only a few years later, it was reported that signals from child victim Robert Holohan’s mobile phone had led Garda detectives to his body. Both Trevor and Robert Holohan had Nokia phones; one last used in Dublin 2 and the other in Midleton, County Cork. Of the two, one would expect that the Dublin phone would be far easier to trace.

Similarly, in 2004, Joe O’Reilly’s mobile phone records helped police identify him as being in the location of his wife Rachel’s house at the time of her death.Have similar enquiries been carried out in relation to persons associated with Trevor Deely?

And, if not, why not?

Against this context, the words of Michele Deely, resonate:

“I don’t believe people vanish. It makes no sense to me…. it actually starts to hurt your brain when you think about it.”

Previously: A Second Look

A Second Man

Related: Philip Cairns And A Trail Of Disinformation

Update:

Mark and David have posted a new YouTube video containing unreleased still images from the cctv footage here.