Disappearance of Timothy MacColl

His disappearance was investigated by the police in Dubai and by the Royal Navy. In 2014, the Royal Navy issued a death certificate listing death by drowning, despite there being no evidence of this and contrary to his wife's wishes.

Two years later, in May 2014, Leading Seaman MacColl was declared dead. His death certificate lists his death as being due to drowning. His wife maintains that MacColl "is disappeared, not missing" and contested the notion that he died by drowning and disagreed with the Navy about declaring death. The Navy maintain that this was necessary to enable his wife to claim his pension, and she was also served notice that she must vacate her military Service Family Accommodation (SFA) at Gosport as she no longer had an entitlement to it, as is normal procedure for all spouses. A headstone has been erected in Haslar Royal Naval Cemetery in Gosport, Hampshire.

MacColl's family have also been openly critical of the Royal Navy and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's investigation into his disappearance. They say that they have often been met with a wall of silence, that no information is being passed along and that the Ministry of Defence prevented MacColl's shipmates from wearing yellow ribbons as a tribute to their missing co-worker. Rachael MacColl and Neil Cunningham (MacColl's uncle, who is a detective constable in Hampshire) flew out to Dubai in January 2013.

In February 2013, Rachael MacColl closed down the Facebook group associated with her husband's disappearance. The group had attracted over 100,000 people and offered up lots of information, but Rachael MacColl said that it just reminded her of what she and her children had lost. By that point, it had been over a year since the family had last seen Timothy MacColl due to him setting sail for the naval mission that HMS Westminster was undertaking. Rachael MacColl described the website as having an adverse effect on all of their lives.

Timothy Andrew MacColl (born 1984) was a Royal Navy leading seaman who disappeared early on the morning of 27 May 2012 in the Port Rashid area of Dubai.

MacColl was serving aboard the Type 23 frigate HMS Westminster as part of the ship's seven-month security mission in the Middle East. The ship docked in Port Rashid, Dubai on 26 May 2012 and left four days after MacColl's disappearance on 31 May. MacColl spent an earlier part of the day swimming at the Seafarers Mission in Dubai before he and some of his shipmates went out drinking in the town.