Attached the gates where the spider cam was filmed from , car parked on double yellows and in front of the gates , suspect it was there for a short while , great place to stop and pick up someone from a local bench
85 Haworth St
Google Maps
It's a very good location if you've spotted a lone student on that bench. As long as you knew it's there of course.
Having looked at the map that's a very, very good location for a lot of things. It's in an area with lots of student accommodation, naive youngsters away from home.
And it's alarmingly close to Cottingham road. I assume lots of students will have to walk down Cottingham road to get home from uni (or for first years back to uni - loads of new campus accommodation built two years ago). At exam time students stay in the uni library very late. Students tooing and froing from local clubs (Pipers plus lots of studenty things on Newlands) or the student Union.
If buses from the Welly sometimes stop opposite the Libby bench it's a good place to observe people getting off. Possibly alone. Possibly splitting up once they get closer to home and feel safer. There are shops that people might pop into late and walk home alone.
Piper's is in Newlands so I could imagine it being a good place to park if you wanted to observe people going home from there down Cottingham road to campus or student houses, such as Wellesley, nearby without the wife noticing. Perhaps his Wellesley wank walk on the 19th Jan started there?
It is also very close to Ventnor road where PR stole stuff. So a good place to park if you wanted to watch people leaving that street.
On the minus side it is more residential than I expected. Tho that might be good in terms of CCTV if you weren't expecting them to be there. And I'm sure man in car wasn't aware of spidercam. But as an assumption CCTV would be less expected than in an area with more businesses and shops. Dark and quiet by the looks of it.
Most alarming of all is it is very close to my child's student house.
So I still stick to my original suspicion that snatching somebody was pre planned.