Mark Wright: Family’s questions after body found

Mr Wright, who was 24 and autistic, was last seen on the Holywood Road in east Belfast at around 8.50am on September 3.

Search teams were deployed in a bid to track down the missing man, however on Monday morning his family confirmed the worst.

Posting on social media, his family said: “We as a family want to thank everyone who’s helped in the search for Mark, unfortunately the outcome wasn’t what we wanted and he was found today.

“We are absolutely devastated and heartbroken and can’t thank you all enough for your help.”

A PSNI spokesperson said: “Police searching for missing person Mark Wright have recovered a body in Glenview Drive in Belfast this morning. A post mortem will be carried out to determine the cause of death. There are no further details at the time.”

However, speaking to the News Letter later yesterday, his family posed questions about how Mr Wright had been cared for - and the police response to his disappearance.

“He was at the Royal [Victoria] Hospital roughly two weeks ago,” they said. “He spoke to two psychiatrists that assessed his needs, [and] he was sent away with a leaflet. Not one person contacted him to see if he was okay.”

His family said his GP was also in contact with him, they said, and that Mr Wright’s mother had asked for “something to settle him” but this was not given for fear of making him worse.

They also felt there had not been adequate communication from the PSNI.

“We’ve begged this week for his photo to be put on the news and didn’t get this, [and] we begged the police for three days to make an appeal and nobody ever got back to us.”

His family said that Mark had been “at his worst” recently and that this was “the first time Mark wanted to accept help and nothing was given”.

A spokeswoman for Castlereagh Medical Centre, where Mr Wright’s GP was based, responded: “We are sorry to hear about the death of Mr Wright and would like to pass our sincere condolences to his family and friends.  However we are unable to comment due to a duty of confidentiality.”

The PSNI extended its sympathy to the Wright family, but have extensive details of media appeals it had made over the weekend.

Detective Inspector Carol Dane said: “Our thoughts are with the family at this very sad time and we extend our condolences.

“In response to concerns raised by the family, the Police Service of Northern Ireland implemented a media plan which ran across Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, September 4,5 and 6.

“We can confirm we issued social media appeals, including a photo and relevant details across our Belfast Facebook pages.

“The appeal, plus a photo, was also released via traditional means to media on Friday, Saturday and Sunday September 4,5 and 6). The appeals issued were to all mainstream -daily and local- print, online and broadcast media.”

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