Was Timmy MacColl Taken?

These images of British sailor Timmy MacColl were captured on CCTV less than three hours before he vanished in Dubai.

The footage was given to his family this week by Dubai Police. It shows the 27-year-old British dad-of-two at Dubai Seafarers’ Mission at 11.38pm on May 26, moments before he left with shipmates in a taxi to go to Rock Bottom in Bur Dubai. Other images, taken by cameras on the door of Rock Bottom, show Timmy entering and leaving the nightspot. But none verify that he got into a taxi, despite claims from fellow sailors that they paid his fare to HMS Westminster, which was docked at Port Rashid.

Last night Timmy’s pregnant wife Rachael, 25, who made a trip to Dubai and retraced Timmy’s last-known steps last month, said she fears her husband has been kidnapped after land and sea searches around Port Rashid failed to find any clues.

She said: “We are told Timmy gets in the taxi, he gets out of the taxi at the tea shack and that’s it.

“We’ve not been told how they know this information is true and we’ve not been told about forensics on the vehicle or anything like that, so we don’t even know if it was Timmy in the taxi.

“It’s assumed it was Timmy in the cab.

“It has been ascertained now that there were other members of the ship’s company in Rock Bottom. They would have left at some point and got a taxi back.

“There’s nothing after he is seen on CCTV leaving the bar. “The description of his cloth­ing given to the police by shipmates was wrong. He was wearing blue and white chec­ked shorts with a red T-shirt and dark-blue canvas shoes.”

Rachael has been told that other HMS Westminster sailors believe Timmy was in Rock Bottom days before he disappeared.

She said: “The fact that he has been in there before could lean towards the theory that someone was watching him.

“Timmy is full of confidence, he talks mainly about me and the children and things that are happening, talks about the fact he’s going to be getting a new motorbike soon and he does tell everybody about his job and what he does.

“Nobody has told me that kidnap has been ruled out. “Nobody has claimed they have him. I would just hate for anybody not to tell the auth­or­ities that they’ve got him.”

The sailor’s family has been told a search at Port Rashid, amid fears he had fallen in the water, failed to find any clues.

Rachael said: “Obviously I had a lot of questions about what they were going to do next.

“When I was in Dubai after the meeting with the police I was more or less convinced that he was in the water and I really did think with every­thing they were doing they would find something or find him. They found no clothing, no phone, no body. They would have found a shoe or an item of clothing.”

She added: “Not knowing is the hardest bit.

“If someone knows something please come forward. My life can’t move forward until I find him. It’s not just emotionally, it’s financially, my children, his family. Our family deserves answers. That’s the main thing. We just need to find him.”

No one from Dubai Police was available to discuss the investigation.

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