Wife’s plea as search for missing man continues

The wife of a man missing for more than a week has made an emotional appeal for information on his whereabouts.

Derek McInulty, 48, from Burnbank, Hamilton, Lanarkshire, has been missing since the morning of 3 January, and his disappearance is “completely out of character”.

Sitting with son Phillip, 17, Gillian McInulty wept as she said: “Derek, the family and I are all worried about you and are missing you, and want to know that you’re safe and well.

“Derek, or anyone that knows where Derek is, please let us know or phone the police so that we know that you are OK.”

Mr McInulty, a night porter at the Eglinton Arms Hotel in Eaglesham, Renfrewshire, was last seen leaving RS McColl’s in the town’s Glasgow Road after finishing work. Police said he was driving a silver Suzuki Swift registration SF51 YEU.

Chief Inspector David Walker said: “Derek is very much a creature of habit and it is very out of character for him to deviate from his day-to-day activities.

“This is a normal family, there were some money worries, but nothing that you would say is out of the ordinary.”

He urged anyone who had seen Mr McInulty or his car to get in touch.

He said: “If you cast your mind back, I think everyone had battened down the hatches at the start of January and there weren’t many people at their work at that time, so the roads would have been very, very quiet.”