Found Deceased UK - Anthony Knott, 33, last seen at a pub in Lewes, Sussex, 20 Dec 2019 #2

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I think the list is of found bodies, rather than missing people.

It states on the website that they deal with missing people and unidentified people, unless I’m picking it up wrong, which could be the case...

We also maintain a central national database of missing persons and unidentified cases. This national database provides a unique function enabling the cross-matching of outstanding missing Individuals with unidentified people, bodies and remains.
 
Please Note This A Personal Opinion Only and purley an alternative thought.

I was unsure if I should post or not. I agree 100% @motherofdaughters post above. I have quietly followed this case.

In most cases where police have located a missing adult who does not want to return home or have their families informed of their whereabouts, the police will record the missing persons wishes and then inform the family that the person has been spoken. Generally, they will not disclose the location and circumstances of the contact with the family, respecting the missing persons wishes. This can be hugely frustrating for relatives and friends of the missing person.

Souce Missing Adults – the law | Safeguarding Hub

We the general public do not know Why Police called off the search they obviously know something we don't. It may just be AK left of his own accord for reasons only known to him and, does not currently want to be found and does not or can't face his Family/Children/Fiance/Friends.

My hope is he will be found alive and well and that his nearest and dearest will have some sort of answer.

This is purely an alternative thought nothing more

As Always
MingyMoo
Yes but even if that were the case then a press release would be issued to say that the missing Firefighter AK has been located safe and well and Sussex police wish to thank the public for all their help and assistance however , they will not be answering any further questions and their will be no further press release ... or words to that effect
Again all MOO
 
[QUOTE="I think there’s intel and FAR more is known than we’ll, rightly, be privy to.[/QUOTE]

I think his fiancée would want us to know if it aided his recovery (good or bad) as LE only go so far. More publicity gained usually means they have to work that little bit extra.

She would certainly want to know & if LE has shared pertinent additional information with her, I think she would have revealed it.
 
I’m not sure I buy into the voluntarily missing theory, it’s an option of course, like all the others but it doesn’t ‘feel right for me.
For arguments sake, if he was voluntarily missing and had contacted the police to let them know he was safe. If he asked the police not to contact the family and let them know he’d made contact. Would they have to respect that even if it meant leaving them in limbo?
No the police would disclose that contact had been made but they would follow that up with the fact that he does not wish to have his whereabouts revealed.
Think about it this way.... the fiancé after a period of time could apply to have him declared legally dead and if life insurance is in being, submit a claim. It would be very unprofessional and to some extent it could be viewed as breaking the law themselves if they were aware that he was alive but at
AKs request, chose to tell not a soul, at the same time knowing that the family had applied to have him declared dead... don’t forget, as stated in my earlier post, a family liaison officer is designated to enable a good flow of information between the SIO and enquiry team and the family of AK
Albeit as the investigation dwindles down then so will the FLO contact however, it’s never actually stopped unless and until the investigation is closed which it would have to be if he is located safe and well and then the FLO would be duty bound to formally cease the professional relationship and having regards to integrity, would have to disclose why ....
All MOO
 
It states on the website that they deal with missing people and unidentified people, unless I’m picking it up wrong, which could be the case...

We also maintain a central national database of missing persons and unidentified cases. This national database provides a unique function enabling the cross-matching of outstanding missing Individuals with unidentified people, bodies and remains.


It’s prominently used to Id unidentified remains and is only updated occasionally.
the charity missing people is the one that has a database of missing people.
Help us find Anthony Knott
 
Customer service/ciggie counters don't usually stay open in tandem with shop hours , do they (our big Tesco's sometimes closes at 8 , Tesco say more generally it's 10 - don't know about Waitrose - perhaps Anthony thought he needed to get a wriggle on for that reason) ?

[sbm][bbm]

what does 'get a wriggle on' mean??

I reckon he switched his phone off so that he couldn't be contacted. To me it seems too much of a coincidence that his phone went off at the same time as he went missing.

well if he fell in water or was otherwise incapacitated, the phone could've been damaged/destroyed at the same time
 
As mentioned in my previous post, I'm not convinced he would have seen Waitrose from the bottom of School Hill unless he walked along past Subway.

However, if he'd found himself at the War Memorial and turned right, he'd have gone past Barclays Bank and the Crown Court.
I struggle to believe they haven't got CCTV.
If he'd turned left he'd have passed the Halifax and Nat West banks, as well as the huge legal firm that seems to have taken over that side of School Hill, and according to the Lewes Present facebook page, footage from Twinkle Twinkle has been sent to the family.

So that basically leaves St Nicholas Lane, which has nothing to suggest it might be a good plav=ce to try to buy cigarettes.

So whatever the reason he left the pub, I still feel he ended up not getting as far as the High Street/School Hill and somehow moved away from the centre.


Unless of course the police are still going through the process of obtaining all the cctv bearing in mind that ,potentially ,with the Christmas period , it could be that they were unable access some premises for collection of CCTV or they may not have had the staffing levels to enable this to be done or as is the case with some CCTV , it needs specialised equipment to view it so it has to be seized and downloaded professionally into a viewable format and yet again I will say that with it being the Christmas holiday period, this would be more difficult and more time consuming .... my own opinion respectfully
 
Re the PI line of thought, I know this is a very personal viewpoint but I honestly find it quite an insult to the police and SSAR. They will have less access to phone records, cctv, witnesses, less technical search abilty and knowledge of tides etc. And they cost a fortune and you have no idea how credible they are, let alone any guarantee of success.

I can understand a desperate family wanting to do eveything they can, but I feel they should focus on the police operation and use available funds to support the young family.

My personal experience is certain LE don’t always give a damn. There are plenty of missing person reports that aren’t really investigated at all. PI can complement searches very effectively & can offer certain answers to families that LE cannot or refuse to.

You have to be a victim to experience for yourself that LE isn’t always there for you.

In many other missing person cases CCTV isn’t sought & ever obtained even when someone placed it under their nose. Witness statements aren’t always taken either.

From your own words you seem to have respect for LE which is fine, but many also respect PI which can cover areas which LE fails to do or are restricted from.
 
[QUOTE="TranquilityBase,

Anxious/serious look - I feel like a lot of emphasis is being put on a few stills and CCTV captures about his state of mind. It's easy to fit these around what theories we already had. It would be interesting for you to be filmed in the same way and read what strangers read into your mannerisms.

Snipped by me, hopefully correctly.
I totally agree with the cctv thing, I run a bar so have watched lots of cctv, I have seen myself and colleagues on there (and the odd thief ) and things can loom totally different.
I remember having a good laugh at one where I am stood at the bar talking to someone and because of camera angle, lighting etc I look really angry, when in reality it was just a general conversation

I also had another thought about the phone, and while I think it would be unlikely as it would be incredibly unlucky.
Could he have dropped his phone just after leaving the pub, in a puddle maybe, or down a drain (don't judge I have done it, lol) hence why it goes off.
It looks like he has a phone case with the flap on the side where you can put cards etc, if that's all he had on him and no wallet or cash, he gets to shop, if that's where he is headed, realises hes lost phone, goes back the way he came to look for it?
Doesn't explain what happens to him then I know and also seems highly unlikely but who knows.
Just random thoughts that swirl.in my head at 2.30am
 
ooooh thanks that changes things for me

Isn’t that the truth.

If he was planning a disappearing act I feel it could have only been in a moment of madness. After all the bar crawl meeting point of Lewes wasn’t long known & his home town Orthington itself or on the job (as a firefighter) would have been better exit routes. I was going to say the only benefit in picking Lewes would be if he wanted to create a better mystery (after all there is a no doubt a mystery) but going missing on the job may have created even more intrigue unless he didn’t want to cause any distractions there.

Picking Lewes could only attract more attention, so he either wanted that attention, didn’t care what fuss it could cause or it was poorly or not planned at all.

And Lewes had bad transport links in comparison.

So if he was planning to vanish you have to assume it was poorly planned as he wouldn’t help his cloak returning to the vicinity of the pubs on foot or indeed he had someone waiting to take him to a new life. And if this new life was so great (to give up everything else) then he should have not looked as stressed, perhaps had been excited.

So I don’t believe any of these possibilities hold any weight.

They’d have to be some other trauma for him to want to leave.

Not referring to Anthony himself but in other missing person cases we’ve seen reasons such as:

Jealously of friend/colleague his partner works with.

Loss of or dwindling interest of partner.

Erectyle disfunction.

Financial fears.

Sexuality.

Medical reasons.

Psychological reasons.

Accidentally killed someone in a hit & run.

The reasons could be endless. Again not referring to or making hints about Anythony’s personal life. I’ve seen no evidence to suggest anything was rocky. Am merely pointing out that there are people who have gone missing on their own accord & these are just a few of the many causes.
 
I have to admit, the first thing that came to my mind when I read that he has a fiancee was, oh did he get cold feet? But as @BodyOfWater said, we have no indication that anything was troubling him with regards to the wedding, so I dismissed this possible reason for a vanishing act. Besides I think if his relationship with his fiancee was a problem for him and he wanted out, I don't think he would leave all his kids behind too. Moo.
 
What would be very telling (& we’re unlikely to find out unless his fiancée shares it) is surely he would have phoned most of his 4 children at some point whilst he was away for the day. I’m unsure if he rang his fiancée but can understand someone not needing to if he was out on a drinking spree with the lads but I would have thought his children (5 days before Xmas) & home from school would have spoken or wanted to speak to their dad.

If so, then I’m sure he would be telling them he was looking forward to getting home & seeing them & vice-versa.

Was any conversations normal, did he sound stressed or worried?

What does his partner mean when she said “the situation [he] left in”?

That wording was either specific, coded or just in regard to the situation of him going missing. But I feel there is something not being revealed. LE are too tight lipped, even more so than what you’d expect.

As I said on a previous thread Anthony had undertaken a multitude of jobs & maybe firefighting was not a job he could mentally cope with & there were major financial concerns as both seemed the need to work (firefighters do get paid reasonably well).

But even that doesn’t make sense as he would be leaving further problems.

As a firefigheter he would be surely insured on the job but off the job even if he was that could take years to be declared dead.

It sadly really is looking to be suicide by drowning or accidental drowning.

Reading between the lines I do feel he was depressed. LE said he is high risk.
 
I have to admit, the first thing that came to my mind when I read that he has a fiancee was, oh did he get cold feet? But as @BodyOfWater said, we have no indication that anything was troubling him with regards to the wedding, so I dismissed this possible reason for a vanishing act. Besides I think if his relationship with his fiancee was a problem for him and he wanted out, I don't think he would leave all his kids behind too. Moo.

I agree BUT unless he felt he needed some space, some time to think & daren’t show his face after all the publicity came about. Perhaps his fiancée & LE felt he was high risk & maybe there was talk about suicidal tendencies so just in case she needed to get the message across to him that he could come home, even after “how big” it’d gotten. Words that she used trying to reach out to him.

Everyon wants Anthony to be alive & I’m sure most people would be forgiving if all he needed was some time to himself & has been staying at a Premier Inn.

Someone could easily pay for a couple of weeks accommodation in cash & keep low key getting food at a 24/7 Tesco or ASDA using self checkouts, etc. Wouldn’t even need to keep low key, just wear a cap or spectacles.

I do feel though that if he is hotelling it & not having a mobile to surf the web (unless he got a cheap PAYG) he would be board & making use of the TV in the room & probably saw the news about himself in the earlier stages unless he deliberately avoided the news.

Just had a quick look & a room at the Premier Inn in Lewes town centre is around £70/night. He could have got 3 nights for £200 under a different name (then moved on). Perhaps LE had a glance at CCTV or booking records but I feel they haven’t explored that avenue. Is Premier Inn near where he was last seen on CCTV?

My point however is he was last seen walking away from the river so perhaps we have to listen to his direction & assume he didn’t drown & has found somewhere to stay. An even cheaper hotel 10/15 miles away could get yourself 2 weeks for £500.
 
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This is probably my last post unless new information comes to light. My opinion has heavily swayed day to day but after EVERYTHING has been taken on board this is a small list of the possibilities of where Anthony could be & in my own opinion the likelihood of it being that:

WATER................UNLIKELY
HOTEL.................LIKELY
NEW LIFE............EXTREMELY UNLIKELY
BEING HELD.......EXTREMELY UNLIKELY
SIDE OF ROAD.... EXTREMELY UNLIKELY
OTHER SUICIDE.EXTREMELY UNLIKELY

I do think there’s a chance Anthony may have considered suicide but with him being in a potentially alien to him town I can’t see it being anything other than water. I’ve heard cases where people have committed suicide on train tracks where the driver was unaware anything had happened (especially in the dark). In some cases body parts have been discovered years after collision. Some people have been found to have been hanging in sheds, etc.

But again we need to remember the phone appears to have been deliberately switched off so something was wrong. But we also know he later walked in the opposite direction of the water.

With all this odd-behaviour it would be a third coincidence to consider he was knocked down by a car & his body taken away.

In the case of missing student Maura Murray, every scenario was a realistic possibly but it’s quite the opposite with Anthony.

In closing everything appears to be unlikely other than that he is still alive in some hotel but even that is still the likeliest of the unlikelies.
 
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