Disappeared without a trace

Mark Sollom, of Nashua, with Basil, the dog left behind by his friend Robert James Nivison on the Australia Day weekend in January 2007 – that was the last time he saw Robert.

CATHY ADAMS

ONE WEEK after Robert Nivison dropped off his dog to be minded for the day, his friend Mark Sollom received a letter in the mail.

It was the last known contact Robbie had with any friend or family member before disappearing without a trace.

The graphic designer, who would now be 37, is just one of the 1600 long-term missing persons across Australia, leaving as many families and thousands more friends in the dark.

Mr Sollom still looks after Robbie's dog, Basil, at his home at Nashua, two-and-a-half years after he last saw his friend on the Australia Day weekend in 2007.

“He'd dropped in here to drop Basil off and said he was going to do some work on the house (he owned in Lismore) and he'd pick Basil up later,” Mr Sollom recalled.

A week later, Basil was still at Nashua and no one had heard from Robbie. The letter Robbie sent to Mr Sollom from Alice Springs, along with another sent to his mother in Walcha, NSW, was the last anyone heard from him.

There were no signs that Robbie, a 'very intelligent, well-spoken and educated, confident, good looking fellow', was about to take off, Mr Sollom said. But the consequences were terrible.

“I want people to think twice before they take such a course,” Mr Sollom said.

“It leaves behind a lot of very upset people who have no closure and will probably never get over it.”

National Missing Persons Week began yesterday to highlight the plight of the families and loved ones of people who disappear.

In the first six months of this year, 109 people across the Richmond Local Area Command were reported missing.

However, 106 of those have been found.

Over the years people still missing from the Northern Rivers include: 68-year-old John Oxland from Ballina since 2008; Lucy Ann McDonald from Lismore since 2002; 83-year-old John Burns from Tweed Heads since 2003; 54-year-old Jeffrey Neville from Mullumbimby since 1993; and Bronwyn Winfield from Lennox Head since 1993, whose disappearance is now being treated as murder.

Mr Oxland was last seen in Ballina on October 11 last year, while Ms McDonald hasn't been seen since April 2002 at her Lismore home.

Police say when Ms McDonald's daughter returned home from work on April 30 that year, her mother had gone, taking no clothes or personal belongings with her.

If you have any information about a missing person, call the Missing Persons Unit on 1800 025 091.