orderMissing Person

The search for Belgian backpacker Theo Hayez involved one of the largest police investigations into a missing person in the NSW Northern Rivers region, his inquest has been told. The second week of the inquest into the 18-year-old’s disappearance in Byron Bay is hearing about police operations and some roadblocks that were faced in obtaining information. The traveller was last seen being ejected from the Cheeky Monkey’s bar at 11pm on May 31, 2019.

Belgian teenager Theo Hayez was not a risk-taker, an adrenaline-seeker or a regular drinker, his cousin has told the inquest into his disappearance. Lisa Hayez said it would be completely out of character for him to have gone by himself for a late-night, cold swim in the ocean at Byron Bay or along a very dark bushy track to the beach. “There is no way he was there by himself with no lights in the middle of bushland,” she testified in the NSW Coroners Court on Tuesday.

Belgian teenager Theo Hayez was ejected from a Byron Bay bar without a chance to tell his friends the night he disappeared two years ago. An inquest into the 18-year-old’s disappearance has heard the ejection has caused his family great distress. Theo was near the end of a backpacking trip around Australia when he went missing on the night of May 31, 2019. His remains have never been found, nor have his phone or clothes.