UK UK - Andrew Gosden, 14, Doncaster, South Yorks, 14 Sep 2007 #2

[Cardgame]

Agree with this, a lone emo kid being seated, ordering a Hawaiian, paying the bill, on a school day, would’ve stood out imo, I think it’s plausible the staff member remembered this customer quite well, and I think there’s a good chance said customer was Andrew. If it was, then it suggests to me he was in London on his tod, and just enjoying his day.

Still, as @Observe_dont_Absorb says, what are the odds of something terrible happening after that, assuming a rendezvous with a groomer hadn’t been arranged for later in the day? You’d think he’d have had no bother getting himself back up to Doncaster - the chances of him getting home safe and sound were considerably better than they were of him meeting an opportunistic predator instead.

But then what were the chances that Lee Boxall would disappear off the face of the earth one Saturday afternoon? Or of Millie Dowler being snatched off the street during a short walk home from school? And so on. These things fortunately happen incredibly rarely, but the reality is that they do happen.

Edit: sp

Yeah I guess the truth is whatever happened is very statistically unlikely. That's what makes it such a mystery. In lots of missing person cases it seems like there's usually one explanation of what *probably* happened, but that isn't the case here. It must be such torture for the parents because there really does seem a slim possibility that Andrew is still alive. Maybe he didn't intend to go forever, but something happened in London that made him decide to stay away.

If he's not alive, then someone out there must know something and it is hard to believe one person acted alone and successfully harmed A and covered it up. I don't know how people live with themselves.

 

[crcap]

Yeah I guess the truth is whatever happened is very statistically unlikely. That's what makes it such a mystery. In lots of missing person cases it seems like there's usually one explanation of what *probably* happened, but that isn't the case here. It must be such torture for the parents because there really does seem a slim possibility that Andrew is still alive. Maybe he didn't intend to go forever, but something happened in London that made him decide to stay away.

If he's not alive, then someone out there must know something and it is hard to believe one person acted alone and successfully harmed A and covered it up. I don't know how people live with themselves.

The only thing I can think of that could be more plausible is if he planned to end his life somewhere away from home

 

[warp3dwing]

It certainly is easy to imagine someone like Andrew having his cash pickpocketed, leaving him open to secondary pathways of victimhood.

 

[Lucy6226]

It certainly is easy to imagine someone like Andrew having his cash pickpocketed, leaving him open to secondary pathways of victimhood.

Yes I agree. As his parents said at the time, Andrew was highly intelligent, but not street smart.

 

[warp3dwing]

Yes I agree. As his parents said at the time, Andrew was highly intelligent, but not street smart.

Maybe he got himself into trouble trying to find a way back home sans-cash without alerting the authorities or calling his parents?

That one-way ticket, though, and avoiding taking the school bus for days. I’m not totally convinced he planned to return home.

 

[Inspector Evans]

Agree with this, a lone emo kid being seated, ordering a Hawaiian, paying the bill, on a school day, would’ve stood out imo, I think it’s plausible the staff member remembered this customer quite well, and I think there’s a good chance said customer was Andrew. If it was, then it suggests to me he was in London on his tod, and just enjoying his day.

Still, as @Observe_dont_Absorb says, what are the odds of something terrible happening after that, assuming a rendezvous with a groomer hadn’t been arranged for later in the day? You’d think he’d have had no bother getting himself back up to Doncaster - the chances of him getting home safe and sound were considerably better than they were of him meeting an opportunistic predator instead.

But then what were the chances that Lee Boxall would disappear off the face of the earth one Saturday afternoon? Or of Millie Dowler being snatched off the street during a short walk home from school? And so on. These things fortunately happen incredibly rarely, but the reality is that they do happen.

Edit: sp

Sarah Everard another example. Resident of London having a mid afternoon jog in area where she lived and a total monster took advantage of the covid restrictions and abused his position to lure her into a police vehicle and ultimately the end of her life in hours.

I think that is one possibility for Andrew. He ended up away from part of London he wanted to go to and got in vehicle of someone with sinister intentions or someone who offered him a place to stay for the night and again things escalated soon after.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Sarah Everard another example. Resident of London having a mid afternoon jog in area where she lived and a total monster took advantage of the covid restrictions and abused his position to lure her into a police vehicle and ultimately the end of her life in hours.

I think that is one possibility for Andrew. He ended up away from part of London he wanted to go to and got in vehicle of someone with sinister intentions or someone who offered him a place to stay for the night and again things escalated soon after.

I don't think the cases are comparable. JMO.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Maybe he got himself into trouble trying to find a way back home sans-cash without alerting the authorities or calling his parents?

That one-way ticket, though, and avoiding taking the school bus for days. I’m not totally convinced he planned to return home.

If he was avoiding the school bus he could have been getting badly bullied. The journey to school and back and the free time around classes is the absolute worst and most terrifying point for any child who is being targeted for bullying by peers or older kids.

If he was being bullied he could have run away and / or taken his life in despair. JMO MOO

 

[rvlvr]

I think there’s merit in the comparison. In fact any case where someone going about their business apparently just ‘disappears’ has merit, imo. If SE had been abducted a few decades earlier might she have become another Suzy Lamplugh, or a Boxell, or a Martin Allen? Another ‘mystery’ with few clues?

I think as @Cardgame says, whatever happened to Andrew was/is statistically very unlikely, but ultimately however ‘wrong’ any of the avenues we go down feel, one of them is surely right.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

I think there’s merit in the comparison. In fact any case where someone going about their business apparently just ‘disappears’ has merit, imo. If SE had been abducted a few decades earlier might she have become another Suzy Lamplugh, or a Boxell, or a Martin Allen? Another ‘mystery’ with few clues?

I think as @Cardgame says, whatever happened to Andrew was/is statistically very unlikely, but ultimately however ‘wrong’ any of the avenues we go down feel, one of them is surely right.

Suzy Lamplugh is a more similar comparison - she slid out of work, possibly on a false pretence, in a situation that wasn't her usual behaviour. Then disappeared. The two situations in combination leave a lack explanation and skew the likelihoods of certain events.

Sarah Everard was snatched by a predatory psychopath who was on the hunt for a victim, he was going to take someone. Also, seems like he was well practised and it wasn't the first time - why have we not heard more about that? Anyone would think the police aren't trying to prove he was a serial offender or something? But that's beside the point. SE had not left her home to go do something out of character and different that day. Plus we knew what happened to her.

When A left home, when Suzy L went out, they were changing the course of their usual routine. That adds a different dynamic. JMO MOO

 

[ChatteringBirds]

The only thing I can think of that could be more plausible is if he planned to end his life somewhere away from home

Why do you think self harm is more plausible than random encounter? Do you really think it's even more likely than an unplanned encounter?

 

[Sarahlou]

Why do you think self harm is more plausible than random encounter? Do you really think it's even more likely than an unplanned encounter?

Statistically speaking, suicide is more likely than murder by a stranger.
I really feel like he would have been found if he'd killed himself though. But I guess not necessarily so.

 

[Sluether87]

By 2007, London was already in the process of a huge clean-up, due to the announcement of the Olympics in 2004. Technology was widespread. To put it into some historical context, Boris Johnson became the new London mayor in May 2008. King's Cross had yet to be renovated, but it was absolutely not the crime hot-spot it had been in the 80s/90s.

We don't know what happened, but we know if he was capable of hiding this, nothing can be ruled out. He may have had a phone, he probably did use the internet. He was almost certainly talking to someone unknown to the family.

Andrew disappeared on the day of the PSP 2000 launch in London. This is significant, especially as he'd brought his along. The only anomaly is if he had £200, he wouldn't have had enough money to buy it (£120) in addition to the train fare home.
ETA: I was wrong, he had more than enough.

The absence of his body and any identifiable belongings, can only suggest that another person was involved. Stranger murders and abductions are ridiculously rare. Just thinking about what is most likely, he probably arranged to meet someone he 'knew'.

 

[davidt]

Just a sideways post really. Back when Andrew disappeared social media was in its infancy. Looking at my Facebook feeds these days there is a steady stream of notices and appeals for various individuals reported as missing and that's all relatively locally. There's a lot of youngsters, often not turning up for school or not coming home afterwards. Where possible reasons are given for disappearing they're often really trivial but feel important to the individual concerned.

Now, usually most are found very quickly, some a bit longer and further away and sadly some remain missing. In Andrew’s time I doubt it was much different just that we wouldn't know anywhere as much about it. Given that, sadly it wouldn't be too surprising if something untowards happened from time to time to some of them. I feel whatever Andrew was up to that day its still possible his ultimate fate was separate to that.

 

[Sluether87]

Just a sideways post really. Back when Andrew disappeared social media was in its infancy. Looking at my Facebook feeds these days there is a steady stream of notices and appeals for various individuals reported as missing and that's all relatively locally. There's a lot of youngsters, often not turning up for school or not coming home afterwards. Where possible reasons are given for disappearing they're often really trivial but feel important to the individual concerned.

Now, usually most are found very quickly, some a bit longer and further away and sadly some remain missing. In Andrew’s time I doubt it was much different just that we wouldn't know anywhere as much about it. Given that, sadly it wouldn't be too surprising if something untowards happened from time to time to some of them. I feel whatever Andrew was up to that day its still possible his ultimate fate was separate to that.

Social media was in its infancy, but the internet was well-integrated into society - people just used it differently and not via their phones. Most people had access to broadband by then.

You would use forums to talk to people about subjects you were interested in. People created blogs, which others could follow, in place of what Instagram became. Gossip blogs gave people updates, Flickr/Photo bucket was used to upload/host beautiful images.

 

[ekardh]

If it was, then it suggests to me he was in London on his tod, and just enjoying his day.

Not necessarily.

What if the groomer was working nearby and planned to meet Andrew afterwards? What if he was running late and Andrew decided to grab some food while he waited?

 

[rvlvr]

Not necessarily.

What if the groomer was working nearby and planned to meet Andrew afterwards? What if he was running late and Andrew decided to grab some food while he waited?

Yeah, I think I mentioned that possibility in the next paragraph of my post.

Still, I find it hard to believe a groomer would go to the bother of luring Andrew to London on a school day, only to leave him alone to kick his heels for several hours. From their perspective surely the risk of him bottling it and/or of the alarm being raised and him being traced only increases as time ticks by.

 

[Inspector Evans]

By 2007, London was already in the process of a huge clean-up, due to the announcement of the Olympics in 2004. Technology was widespread. To put it into some historical context, Boris Johnson became the new London mayor in May 2008. King's Cross had yet to be renovated, but it was absolutely not the crime hot-spot it had been in the 80s/90s.

We don't know what happened, but we know if he was capable of hiding this, nothing can be ruled out. He may have had a phone, he probably did use the internet. He was almost certainly talking to someone unknown to the family.

Andrew disappeared on the day of the PSP 2000 launch in London. This is significant, especially as he'd brought his along. The only anomaly is if he had £200, he wouldn't have had enough money to buy it (£120) in addition to the train fare home.
ETA: I was wrong, he had more than enough.

The absence of his body and any identifiable belongings, can only suggest that another person was involved. Stranger murders and abductions are ridiculously rare. Just thinking about what is most likely, he probably arranged to meet someone he 'knew'.

Interesting. Was there any event signifying the new PSP in London? Have fond recalls of new Playstations coming out and long queues from kids to purchase it, same for the Xbox.

Perhaps if he was really around Oxford Street that afternoon a store might've had a promotion or some event on? Perhaps the wrong era now as gamer conventions are commonplace now and something he would enjoy enormously.

There were a few things to tempt him down to London that weekend but seems unlikely he actually made it to any of those events/gigs.

 

[Bahshudc]

Speculation based on nothing but a gut feeling - I don't think he was groomed online or elsewhere. IMO he had likely travelled / explored before, but perhaps this was his first solo trip to London. I've always wanted to know if the train station staff had seen Andrew travel alone before that day, but this may be something police would keep private. Perhaps they don't know either.

I lived in London until recently for 4 years, almost 5. Even with all the current phone-snatchings, thieving and muggings occurring, there's not much (in my experience) that would happen to a young teenage boy in central London, 2007, that would cause him to never appear again.

Unless someone WANTED to cause him harm.

This is to say that I do not think this disappearance was an accident or 'mistake' - short of falling into the Thames, what options do we have which would:

a) cause him to totally disappear
b) go completely unnoticed by a passerby
c) find no evidence of, even years later
?

I'm a firm believer that somebody wanted to cause him harm, and ensure that nobody would ever find out. Something would've been found by now if this was not the case. This leads me to my next question: If Andrew wasn't lured or groomed online, how likely is it that Andrew stumbled across an opportunist predator? Somebody who saw a young boy, alone, and perhaps looking lost or disoriented? Something as simple as "Do you need directions?" could then become "I know a great place we could visit together" and so on.

I also wonder if he could've over-spent, lost or had his money stolen. My main theory is that during the day and early evening, he was fine. But my main worry is that he may have had to sleep rough for the night - central London is great and bustling during the day, but not so much at 4 in the morning. Any time I visited London as a child, my parents ALWAYS reminded me that, in an occasion where I got lost, go to a family or a mother to ask for help, and nobody else. I wonder if this would've been Andrew Gosden's instinct? If he was in a situation he realised wa dangerous or risky, what would've been his get-out plan? Was he even able to leave after a certain point?

My questions:

Did Andrew have a plan of what to do in London? How set was he on this? Could his mind be changed by an alternate event, e.g. a fun-looking rave or Pizza Hut? Someone who convinced him to visit elsewhere? Perhaps the thrill of being in London alone was what he was seeking.

Could his money have been mugged or stolen from him? Perhaps he had to make alternative arrangements once he realised he wouldn't get a ticket home that night?

What essentials did he leave behind at his home? Would he go a night without his PSP or would that be an essential item to pack?

How aware was Andrew re predators and 'child-snatchers'? Would he have known to kick about and make a fuss if a weirdo approached him?

Questions nobody can answer I suppose. Sorry for the long post, this case really gets to me.

 

[Lucy6226]

We should remember that Andrew looked young/small for his age and imo would have stood out alone. Especially during a school day. I think this makes opportunistic foul play more of a possibility