Edinburgh man with dementia goes missing from Barcelona hotel as friends and family frantically search for him

The frantic family and friends of a missing Edinburgh man with dementia, who was last seen leaving his Barcelona hotel in the early hours of Monday morning, say they “fear the worst”.

David Moore, 65, from Carrick Knowe, was last seen leaving the Hotel Oasis at Pla de Palau in the Catalan Capital at 4am on Monday, April 8. He has Alzheimer’s and is unsteady on his feet due to disabilities he suffers from. He is also partially deaf and struggles to communicate with others, while he also went missing without his glasses on, so he will struggle to see where he is going.

His wife Christine, 60, was too emotional to speak about her husband’s sudden disappearance, but family friend Donna McCarron-Flynn, who went to Barcelona on holiday with the couple and her husband Captain Mark Flynn, 55, revealed they have been frantically searching the streets of Barcelona for ‘Davy’.

Donna said: “There has not been any sightings of Davy from anyone. We have handed out 150 flyers, but the police have not been great so far. I believe they have wasted the first 30 hours of this investigation looking for Davy.

“We were out on the streets searching for 18 hours but we’ve found nothing, no sign of him, no clues or anything.

“We are all pretty terrified. We are all feel sick. We really do fear the worst. Christine, who is also severely disabled, is just about keeping her body working.

“We don’t understand why he hasn’t been found yet. He stands out, as he is very tall and walks with a shuffle so he is very unsteady on his feet. He would probably seem like a drunk person to a stranger but he doesn’t drink a drop.”

Donna revealed that Davy had already left his hotel room in the middle of the night earlier in the holiday.

She said: “Christine didn’t feel him leave on Monday. He had let himself out of the hotel room in his pyjamas on our second night there. And the lovely concierge got him back to his room.

“So to stop that happening again we left the toilet light on so he could see, and we put his walker out so Christine would hear him if he got up and used it.

“He has never done this in Edinburgh, not once. We think it must be down to him being disorientated in a city he doesn’t know.

“When he went missing this second time, the concierge called Christine when they couldn’t stop him leaving but she never heard the phone. And they didn’t call Mark and I. I wish they had.

“When Christine woke up to discover Davy was gone she told us and we jumped out of bed and ran down to reception to find out he had left the hotel three hours before we got up.

“We immediately called the police and started searching street by street from the hotel. And we have asked the police to check the buses as Davy seemed obsessed with using his Edinburgh bus pass, thinking he was still back home. So he might have got on a Barcelona bus, but we have heard nothing back from the police about that.”

The two couples were in Barcelona to celebrate Christine’s 60th birthday and had been due to fly back tonight, Tuesday, April 9, but have now had to book into another Barcelona hotel to continue the search for Davy.

Donna, who is Christine’s minister at Broxburn Baptist Church, added: “It was only supposed to be Christine and I on this holiday, a girls’ holiday, but Davy insisted on coming, so Mark came also. We decided Davy should come as it would probably be the last holiday he could remember properly as his dementia gets worse.

“We have now moved to another hotel as we should have come back to Edinburgh tonight, but we have to stay here to continue the search.

“The British Consulate and the Home Office have been in touch. They said they have spoken to the Spanish police. It’s just a terrifying waiting game now. We are so scared that Davy has come to harm.”