As the search for her son continues, the distressed mother of a young man who vanished at the Giant’s Causeway has disclosed a potential sighting of her son.
Lester McLennan’s mother, Lalitha McLennan, told the Belfast Telegraph that a local tour guide had gone to the police and claimed to have seen her son in the vicinity of Dunseverick Castle.
Before watching Lester head east towards Dunseverick Castle, the tour guide claimed to have had a conversation with him.
Ms. McLennan clarified, “The police informed me that Lester had been speaking to him for a while and was asking him questions about the neighbourhood.”
After that, he headed towards Dunseverick Castle. He was close to the stacks at the moment.
Lester McLennan, 20, was reported missing after visiting the Giant’s Causeway early on Friday, November 1. A multi-agency search is still underway for him.
Lester’s dad and girlfriend are now also in the country aiding in the search.
In order to help focus the search even more, Ms McLennan made another plea for anyone who handed a black backpack into the Giant’s Causeway visitor centre to come forward.
She stated, “I can’t emphasise enough how beneficial that would be.”
“His passport was in the bag, and I believe they may have carried it a long distance because they considered it to be significant.”
“I believe the area where the last pinged phone call was made is about 12 miles across. We initially believed [the suitcase] had been discovered in the parking lot, but it was simply given to the employees there,” she claimed.
The last trace police gathered from his phone was around 5pm on the day he went missing.
Mrs McLennan explained she has been very “distressed” however is ready to push on with finding her son.
“Yesterday afternoon I had lost all energy and got to a point where I was very distressed but I feel like I’m back on it today,” she said.
She explained that after dropping out of school during lockdown, Lester finally saw a future for himself after enrolling in an access course for university this year.
“He was quite low and anxious during lockdown which was really difficult for him and he did bomb out of his A-Levels,” she said.
“In September, he just started an access course to go to university and he was just so excited about it.”
“It was really nice, he was full of enthusiasm. He said he could see a future for himself.”
Sean McGarry of the Community Rescue Service in Coleraine confirmed that teams have scoped the Dunseverick Castle area already but will be returning.
Mr McGarry said: “He was obviously going in a certain direction which helps us. That takes him much further east.
“We have to make these assumptions, so we have already searched this area but we will return to that direction and get another search there as well.”
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