Tom Doherty’s family lost contact with him after he fell while hiking on Tuesday evening (Picture: Family Handout/PA Wire)
The family of a British doctor missing in France are desperate to access his Apple account to find his last location.
It’s been four days since Tom Doherty, a 67-year-old from St Albans, vanished while hiking in the French Pyrenees near Col d’Escots on Tuesday.
A photo he sent his family on WhatsApp showed clouds coming over the top of a mountain that afternoon, around 5pm.
He sent a message saying he had fallen and couldn’t move, just two-and-a-half hours later. That was the last his family heard from him.
With thunderstorms and heavy fog in the Ariège region along France’s border with Spain and Andorra in recent days, the family fear Tom may have been caught in bad weather.
They believe his Apple account could hold the clue to his whereabouts thanks to location data attached to his photos and Find My app. But the family has so far had no luck.
In a social media post, a woman claiming to be Tom’s niece said: ‘We desperately need to access his Mac laptop which has been locked as we have tried his password too many times.
‘We need to get into it … so that we can look at the last location of his last photos on iCloud and try and get into his Find My.’
Weather has deteriorated since Tom disappeared (Picture: Family Handout/PA Wire)
A search effort using dogs and helicopters was launched after Tom, a grandfather-of-one who has three daughters and one son, disappeared.
Described as an avid and experienced walker, Tom set off in the Pyrenees on Saturday.
His wife and one of his children have been at his last known location since Wednesday morning.
According to his family, the retired doctor was a respected consultant of Tropical medicine who worked around the world and specialised in Malaria.
Since retiring almost a decade ago, he has spent most of his time in France.
A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: ‘We are supporting the family of a British man missing in France and are in touch with the local authorities.’
