The families of three missing Welsh fishermen are being supported after the bodies of three men were found off the coast of England over the weekend.
Ross Ballantine, 39, Carl McGrath, 34, and Alan Minard, 20, disappeared off the Conwy coast on January 27 and no trace of them has been seen since. The men were onboard the Nicola Faith, a 10-metre-long boat that failed to return to port in Conwy.
Despite a major sea search involving the RNLI, no trace of the boat or the men was found and the search was called off on January 29. But North Wales Police today confirmed it had informed and was supporting the families of the three fishermen after the discovery of three bodies off the coast of the Wirral and Blackpool.
In a statement, the force said: "We have been in contact with colleagues from both Merseyside and Lancashire Police, and we await the outcome of the Home Office postmortem examinations.
"The families of the missing crew members from the vessel ‘Nicola Faith’ have been kept informed, and continue to be supported by specialist officers. We would request that they are given the necessary privacy at this difficult time."
After the search was called off in January, the families fundraised to fund a private effort to locate them, which was due to begin today. Earlier this month, a life raft from the missing fishing boat was found off the coast of Kirkcudbrightshire in Scotland.
Last month, Carl McGrath's mum, Julie McGrath, spoke about her heartbreak with her son missing.
She said: "My eldest son Anthony passed away when he was 26 and I've been dealing with that grief for 10 years. To then hear about Carl, the pain is unbearable, I can't believe this is happening, why me? Why my boys?
"Losing Anthony made me more over protective of my other two children because I was so scared of losing them. Life went on for everyone else but me after that moment, and I really struggled to deal with it.
"Me and Carl had our ups and downs over the years and for a while, we didn't speak until he had a serious motorbike accident and broke his back. I thought I was going to lose him then, he ended up on life-support, it was horrible. But he got out of hospital and back on his feet and that brought us back together again.
"I think, because I've smothered him, it's caused us to fall out again and the last thing I told him was: 'I love you, you can't take that away from me, but if you need me I'm here.'"
