Jamie Barrow - "a kinder and more generous person you could not find"

Mon, 02 Oct 2023

The Mother of a missing man has paid tribute to her son after police announced they had recovered a body from the sea off the Island's coast at the weekend.

On Saturday (September 30) a body was found just off the Dog Mills area and the police released a statement that they believed it was that of 39 year old Jamie Barrow who had been missing for two weeks.

This morning (October 2) Jamie’s mum, Valerie Nelson has taken to social media to thank the Island community for taking this tragic event “into their hearts” and for sending messages of “love and support”.

Although no formal identification has been released by the Constabulary, Valerie confirmed via Facebook that it was her son saying she will not see Jamie “again in this lifetime at least, I hold him dear to my heart and always will”.

Speaking of Jamie on Facebook she said a “kinder and more generous person you could not find”.

In Valerie’s post she said: “After taking a couple of days to digest our tragic news and to try and respond personally to the 100’s of messages I’ve had, I would now like to thank the residents of the Island and further afield for their love help and outstanding support given to me and my family during the last fortnight.  

“The care and attention given by Police across the Island and especially Ramsey Police Station was remarkable and I would personally like to thank all the officers involved but special thanks to Neil Edwards who was and still is our Family Liason Officer who was assigned by Sgt Steve Gadman who was my initial contact and remained throughout, the Superintendent who walked miles to Laxey and back, also to Pam who coordinated all of the services and agencies in the search for my son. This includes The Lifeboat’s search & rescue, the dog search teams, the Civil Defence, the fire and rescue service, the divers and drone searchers and I’m sure a lot more I’ve to find out about and will.

“I would like to thank the general public for taking this tragic event into their hearts and sending us messages of love and support. This Island community stands together in such times and is overwhelming.”

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