Brother of missing Dublin woman urges TV shows to add helpline numbers
A brother of a Dublin woman who vanished in 1999 wants TV storylines about missing people to include vital helpline information.
Since Ellen Coss née Brown suddenly disappeared, her devoted brother Thomas Brown, 66, has campaigned tirelessly to find her. As part of the Irish Mirror's 'Missed' campaign that highlights the tragedy of Ireland's missing people and the anguish of those left behind, Mr Brown spoke to us to highlight the ongoing agony of families and their missing loved ones.
Our 'Missed' campaign highlights the forgotten, unsolved, or underreported cases of missing people across Ireland and delves into the country's most high-profile cases.
Tom believes that productions like television dramas, movies, documentaries, and podcasts should carry details of how members of the public can reach out to the authorities to share evidence. Just a fortnight after Ellen's birthday on April 30, Mr Brown spoke to the Irish Mirror about media assistance, the Garda investigation, false sightings, and how his sister's disappearance pushed him to the brink of suicide.
Ellen went missing on November 3, 1999. Tom said: 'There are plenty of TV shows and podcasts and things like that always talking about missing person cases, but after every programme they don't always give out information numbers for people to call. The lots of TV shows have a storyline about someone going missing. Even Fair City had one.
'In any other storyline, if it's for drug addiction or suicide, or mental health, the shows put helpline numbers on the screen for people to call. But they don't do that for missing person cases. They have to take this seriously. Give out the helpline.'
Ellen, from Ballyfermot in Dublin, was aged 51 when she disappeared after staying with her sister Bertha Lee in England for a few months, following the death in March that year of their mother, whose loss left Ellen heartbroken. The sisters left Bertha's home at Langley in Middleton, outside Manchester, and waved farewell to each other as Ellen caught a train at Piccadilly Rail Station for Holyhead port in Wales for the ferry to return home to Dublin.
Mum-of-one Ellen vanished with Stg£20 and no passport. The trip home from Holyhead was one that she had made several times because she preferred not to fly – but she vanished without trace and has never been found, despite police searches in England, Wales, and Dublin. Her son Peter, who is living in London at the time, revealed that his mum told him on the phone on the night before she disappeared that she loved him, something she would often tell him.
A body found in Bournemouth a year later was DNA tested, but it was not Ellen. The family was told by detectives that there was no CCTV footage and a TV appeal on BBC led to numerous false sightings, including one that turned out to be a homeless woman in Dublin.
Gardai issued a public appeal for information, TV3 made a documentary called Ireland's Missing Mums, and an advertisement was put in a Manchester newspaper in 2021. She sometimes went by the name Cleo Brown and was 5 feet, 3 inches tall. Family members led the search for her, with her sister Bertha saying in 2005 that she believed Ellen was still alive.
Bertha, who died in 2015, said 20 years ago: "I don't know why, but I do think I'd sense it or know it if she was dead. Plus, another thing, I really do think they'd have found her body if she's died."
Ellen's son Peter, who is now 55, said in 2019: "If she's still alive we would just be relieved she is okay and would just say to get in touch." He added: 'If the worst has happened, and anyone who knows her or has information, then please just get in touch with the police."
Ellen's brother Tom slept rough among Dublin's homeless in an attempt to find the homeless woman who was one of the false sightings of Ellen around 2000 to 2001. Tom told the Irish Mirror in 2016: 'I had to sleep rough to gain the trust of the homeless community and I wanted to see this woman. She was very like my sister but it was not her.'
Tom fears his sister's case did not receive maximum police focus because her disappearance involved travel between three countries and different jurisdictions. He did his own investigative work and spent years going back and forth between Dublin and Holyhead on the ferry in the hope of finding her. In recent years, Tom who admitted that he was 'resigned to my beloved sister being at peace in heaven', decided that he had given up 'making appeals and doing interviews as it is too distressing'.
But, last night, Tom spoke to the Irish Mirror and said: 'No matter how you look at it, you don't get closure. There are so many missing people that you really have to campaign a lot to get noticed. It led to a lot of misinformation being provided, like false sightings, which can give hope and then heartbreak. It is so hard. It's not like on TV, where they do their own detective work and find the person.'
He added: 'The police in my sister's case were of no use to us. We relied on sightings from the public. There was a homeless woman in Dublin who was the double of Ellen, around 2001 or 2002. But she wasn't Ellen. I believe Ellen got no farther than Holyhead. I went around the streets of Holyhead and the whole area, trying to find Ellen. The last time was 2011.
'I went over and I took with me the ashes of my oldest brother, Roy, who died in 2004. I had been searching for Ellen and was up in the height in Holyhead and thought, 'F**k this, I am going to jump into the sea; there's no point'. I was thinking that I'd either hit the rocks or the water. It was a culmination of factors, including the search, the investigation, and it was Ellen's anniversary. Then a helicopter went overhead and I didn't bother. The thought of going missing on Ellen's anniversary would've been hard for people.'
Information can be passed to the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111 and Ireland's Missing Persons' Helpline is 1800 442 552. Help can also be provided to the UK's National Missing Persons on its missingpeople.org.uk website, and to the UK's Crimestoppers on its crimestoppers-uk.org website, or by calling Greater Manchester Police on 00441618725050.
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