Tom Powell
A MANHUNT is underway for the yacht-owning boyfriend of a missing mother who worked in Gibraltar and lived in Spain.
Police are probing the possibility that Lisa Brown, 32, may have been abducted and taken out to sea, possibly en route to Ibiza or Thailand.
The mother of an eight-year-old boy was last seen at her home in Guadiaro, near Sotogrande, on November 6.
She was reported missing after failing to pick up son Marco from school.
A search of the surrounding area, including helicopters, sniffer dogs and a diver operation in nearby Rio Guadiaro, has so far found nothing.
Now the Olive Press can be revealed that her boyfriend, from Liverpool, has also vanished.
Sources claim Simon Corner, 32, could now be in Thailand, Ibiza – or even Portugal – as the mystery surrounding the case deepens.
It has emerged, the yacht dealer had been living on a boat – Rosa of London – in La Linea’s Alcaidesa marina, where Brown was a ‘regular visitor’.
A source at the marina office described Corner as a ‘wheeler dealer’, who had docked a number of different boats there over the last year.
Last seen in July, Corner, who looked ‘older than his age’, made his money buying and selling boats and had previously had a Spanish girlfriend from La Linea.
He believed that Corner had most recently taken Rosa to Sotogrande port, where its name had been changed, before he ‘went abroad’.
“He was often in and out of the port and you have to be suspicious about exactly what he was up to,” he added. He refused to deny that he had left without paying his bills.
A retired Briton meanwhile, who has a boat in the marina, told the Olive Press he often saw girlfriend Brown visiting.
“She would sunbathe on his boat. She had a lovely, soft, Scottish accent and was an affable girl,” he said.
“I stopped seeing her after he disappeared in the middle of the night some weeks ago without paying his berth fees.”
According to another marina regular, his boat apparently later broke down in the middle of the Straits and had to be towed into Ceuta.
But once more he left in the night a week after getting it fixed.
“He may have left Ceuta and then called in at Duquesa or Sotogrande port and picked Lisa up,” suggested the Brit.
“He always said he wanted to soon take the boat to Ibiza.”
Another Australian boat owner revealed that he is owed money by Corner having helped him fix his boat and get a new engine fitted.
Brown, from Dumbarton, Scotland, had recently landed a new job in Gibraltar at Bet365 before she vanished, having left betting firm Ladbrokes in August.
The Royal Gibraltar Police have been working with the Guardia Civil in the search and confirmed they are looking for her boyfriend, a ‘British man who had been docked at Alcaidesa marina and working in Gibraltar’.
A Guardia Civil spokesman in Algeciras confirmed that officers had been to Alcaidesa marina, to attempt to speak to a ‘British man’ but would not confirm his name.
Brown’s son Marco meanwhile, is currently being looked after by his father – her ex – Tony Tomillero.
Her family members have flown over from Scotland to help the search.
Sister Helen Jordan said: “I last spoke to Lisa on November 4 but she never mentioned anything about a new boyfriend. Everything seemed fine.”
