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

[warp3dwing]

- There was one from a woman who said her son used to play video games with Andrew at school in the morning, before lessons started.
- Someone who said they were in a competitive maths team with Andrew, and they said he was the leader of the group and the others often relied on him for the answers.
- A person who said they were at school with Andrew and said he casually swore in front of the teacher once when he was re-telling a story about something his dad did.

Those are some interesting tidbits of info, thank you.

Any idea of the time frame of these events in relation to Andrew’s disappearance?

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

- There was one from a woman who said her son used to play video games with Andrew at school in the morning, before lessons started.
- Someone who said they were in a competitive maths team with Andrew, and they said he was the leader of the group and the others often relied on him for the answers.
- A person who said they were at school with Andrew and said he casually swore in front of the teacher once when he was re-telling a story about something his dad did.

It seems that Andrew was more sociable and outgoing than I had gained an impression of. Also that he came in contact with a lot of people, perhaps some who weren't officially 'known' or even some who wouldn't be considered suspicious?

JMO MOO

 

[warp3dwing]

It seems that Andrew was more sociable and outgoing than I had gained an impression of. Also that he came in contact with a lot of people, perhaps some who weren't officially 'known' or even some who wouldn't be considered suspicious?

JMO MOO

I’m curious if these more sociable actions happened before or during Andrew’s “quieter phase” mentioned by his dad?

 

[CGMK]

Good points re meeting someone at the camp.

Altho I'm not sure tracing things was quite as easy to do in the old days of dial up internet and analogue systems that were still in place in 2007.

Not sure why people are so adamant that Andrew didn't have devices or access though. I got my first mobile phone in 1997 and had a desktop computer with dial up modem at home. A lot of people did. For those who didn't, there were 'internet cafes' and computer use at the libraries, at schools and colleges. Most internet services had a messenger system ie 'aol messenger' whereby once you'd made an email address using their service, messages could ping from one user to another and these could be from total strangers, sometimes based on keywords in a profile or just random shots in the dark starting with A/S/L (age sex location). Also there was a plethora of weird and wonderful discussion forums and stuff that would likely be considered the dark web now as I'm not sure there was any scrutiny or tracking or monitoring of online traffic flow as there is these days.

By 2007 everyone had phones. Gaming devices could chat online. Gaming had turned into something huge. MySpace had been going a few years, there were tons of forums for popular culture, music, and fans - even 'fan fiction' became a huge thing. It would defy belief that Andrew wasn't online one way or another IMO.

I agree. Back then, many teens in schools used ukchat.com servers for years from about 99 until they finally closed in 2007. There were chat rooms specifically for 13–16 year olds, and these had hosts who monitored them (very different from what you’d find at that URL today).

Teens didn’t even need a web browser, they used chat clients like MSN Comic Chat, mIRC, and Pirch. As far as I remember, there weren’t restrictions on downloading these programs. So if a student didn’t save their login on a school computer or deleted the software afterward, nobody would really know who they had been talking to.

The teens often bonded in those spaces and formed strong friendships, friendships that I doubt many parents were aware of.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

There was one from a woman who said her son used to play video games with Andrew at school in the morning, before lessons started.

I wonder if that's a sign he & his friends could have been using chat rooms. We used them at my school, prior to 2007, and there were adults in the chats, but it was a different time and not in the UK. So maybe not really comparable.

 

[Officer Dibble]

The other thing is that as well as the lad who looks rather like Andrew in my opinion if you pan into the photo in the article you will see that some of the lads look really young. The lad in the front of the photo drinking a bottle of something looks to be around the same age as Andrew.

Re-looking at that photo, I still think it resembles Andrew without his glasses on.

 

[rvlvr]

Very skeptical of that sighting, it wasn’t a cold day when Andrew disappeared never mind ‘freezing’ and that station is a fair distance northwest of London, it just doesn’t fit.

 

[Officer Dibble]

Very skeptical of that sighting, it wasn’t a cold day when Andrew disappeared never mind ‘freezing’ and that station is a fair distance northwest of London, it just doesn’t fit.

What was the temperature then in that part of the country?

 

[rvlvr]

What was the temperature then in that part of the country?

Around 21C:

London, United Kingdom Weather History | Weather Underground

A packed train going in to London would surely suggest the witness was travelling in the early morning, but we know Andrew didn’t get to King’s Cross until 11.20am.

 

[skylersymmer]

Haddenham and Thame Parkway trains to London end up at Marylebone not Kings Cross as well so doubt it was him

 

[lebvidox]

When looking at the footage of a neighbor's CCTV showing a boy that could be Andrew walking straight ahead in the opposite sidewalk that morning, I have the distinct impression of seeing a dark jacket tied around his waist.

Very visible when this boy is not hidden by a parked car, such as in this frame. All in all, considering the possibly different features of the boy spotted in the King's Cross footage, I'm even open to entertain that kid could not be Andrew at all.

 

[warp3dwing]

The first one was the most recent to his disappearance, when he was attending McCauley Catholic.
I think the last two were when he was younger and still at primary school.


Someone from Mumsnet claims to have seen Andrew on a train on the day he disappeared and that they reported it to the police at the time. They said he got on at Haddenham and Thame Parkway station, on the train towards London Marylebone. They remembered him because of his Slipknot T shirt.
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I have a hard time understanding why Andrew would've been coming back to London from Haddenham on the 14th. He would have had to head to Marylebone Station from King's X, take the train to Haddenham, do whatever it was he wanted to do, and then come back to London sometime after around 3 PM (peak).

What could possibly have been in Haddenham to interest Andrew? Ducks? Posh buildings? I'm drawing a blank!

And then there's the claim it was "cold" and "freezing," which it wasn't. It got chillier as night fell—and had I been in London that day, I definitely would've wanted a jacket or a long-sleeved shirt—but from looking at Flickr photos of the day, plenty of folks were in short-sleeved shirts during daylight hours.

An interesting claim, this one, but I'm dubious.

 

[Queen of the Winter Night]

When looking at the footage of a neighbor's CCTV showing a boy that could be Andrew walking straight ahead in the opposite sidewalk that morning, I have the distinct impression of seeing a dark jacket tied around his waist.

Very visible when this boy is not hidden by a parked car, such as in this frame. All in all, considering the possibly different features of the boy spotted in the King's Cross footage, I'm even open to entertain that kid could not be Andrew at all.

I wonder if investigators have an enhanced version that lead them to believe this is definitely Andrew?

 

[Inspector Evans]

Very skeptical of that sighting, it wasn’t a cold day when Andrew disappeared never mind ‘freezing’ and that station is a fair distance northwest of London, it just doesn’t fit.

Cold would be 8-9pm and it says broad daylight which would be 4-5pm being mid September so timeline a bit off to me.

Poster also thinks Slipknot are a minority band. They are huge and headlined many big festivals in U.K and of course the US. Guessing it is someone who dosen't like that genre of music.

 

[Inspector Evans]

Around 21C:

London, United Kingdom Weather History | Weather Underground

A packed train going in to London would surely suggest the witness was travelling in the early morning, but we know Andrew didn’t get to King’s Cross until 11.20am.

TBF I think trains would be packed if it was only 3-4 carriages around 5/6pm as it would be a Friday evening so plenty going in to social stuff compared to other days of the week.

Think that station is close to Aylesbury/High Wycombe which are commuter towns into London (half hour or so on the train).

 

[RandyMcDonald]

They wouldn’t know that at the time though would they, he’s not Andrew Gosden the missing boy with his own Wikipedia page at that point, he’s just another vulnerable and naive child who a predator could exploit.

I agree with @Observe_dont_Absorb that while such abductions were likely far less common in 2007, London’s history of children disappearing off the streets and either winding up dead or in some cases never being found makes it a distinct possibility this happened here imo.

I saw that clip. I think that the woman that crime profiler was talking about fell outside of the bounds of sex trafficking—she was a young adult not a teenager, she had a new career and a life, she had no prior relationship that would make grooming possible, she had resources—in ways that Andrew does not. He was a young teenager

The only thing we can say is that he had plans and an interior life that his family knew nothing of. What this was, we do not know, and we consequently cannot say anything about what this unknown interior life could have done. An encounter in London with someone who had groomed him at home is possible but we cannot claim that.

One thing we do keep in mind is that people conflate sex trafficking with sex attack. That woman in that prior link might well have been attacked and murdered, but that is not sex trafficking. That is just murder. Something similar would have happened here.

 

[Cardgame]

Not sure why people are so adamant that Andrew didn't have devices or access though. I got my first mobile phone in 1997 and had a desktop computer with dial up modem at home. A lot of people did. For those who didn't, there were 'internet cafes' and computer use at the libraries, at schools and colleges. Most internet services had a messenger system ie 'aol messenger' whereby once you'd made an email address using their service, messages could ping from one user to another and these could be from total strangers, sometimes based on keywords in a profile or just random shots in the dark starting with A/S/L (age sex location). Also there was a plethora of weird and wonderful discussion forums and stuff that would likely be considered the dark web now as I'm not sure there was any scrutiny or tracking or monitoring of online traffic flow as there is these days.

By 2007 everyone had phones. Gaming devices could chat online.

RSBM

I think it's because the family say he didn't, and they have no reason to lie. And the police did say that they have looked for this and found nothing.

But we know A was doing things in secret because he went to London and didn't tell anyone why.

It's a shame this aspect of the investigation can't be revisited now. Not sure if we even know if he had an email address.

 

[Cardgame]

I have a hard time understanding why Andrew would've been coming back to London from Haddenham on the 14th. He would have had to head to Marylebone Station from King's X, take the train to Haddenham, do whatever it was he wanted to do, and then come back to London sometime after around 3 PM (peak).

What could possibly have been in Haddenham to interest Andrew? Ducks? Posh buildings? I'm drawing a blank!

And then there's the claim it was "cold" and "freezing," which it wasn't. It got chillier as night fell—and had I been in London that day, I definitely would've wanted a jacket or a long-sleeved shirt—but from looking at Flickr photos of the day, plenty of folks were in short-sleeved shirts during daylight hours.

An interesting claim, this one, but I'm dubious.

He wasn't local, so if it was him it's possible he got the wrong train.

IMO it is highly likely that he would have gotten lost or misdirected at some point, as a fourteen year old boy who wasn't familiar with London. I've lived in the city for most of my adult life and I still get lost in strange areas, and there are still train lines I have never been on.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

RSBM

I think it's because the family say he didn't, and they have no reason to lie. And the police did say that they have looked for this and found nothing.

But we know A was doing things in secret because he went to London and didn't tell anyone why.

It's a shame this aspect of the investigation can't be revisited now. Not sure if we even know if he had an email address.

I think this is a problem in many cases, families are believed because of course they have no reason to lie. However, it doesn't mean that the view they hold are 'the truth'.

So many people have secretive behaviour, secret habits, covert stuff... especially teenagers and young adults who are experimenting with finding their own feet, breaking free from being closely parented as an infant / child, hormones raging, sexual interests developing, peer pressure becomes more important than doing what the parents tell them. Plus they may begin to do things they know the parent may disapprove of.

 

[RandyMcDonald]

I think this is a problem in many cases, families are believed because of course they have no reason to lie. However, it doesn't mean that the view they hold are 'the truth'.

So many people have secretive behaviour, secret habits, covert stuff... especially teenagers and young adults who are experimenting with finding their own feet, breaking free from being closely parented as an infant / child, hormones raging, sexual interests developing, peer pressure becomes more important than doing what the parents tell them. Plus they may begin to do things they know the parent may disapprove of.

The reason people keep coming back to the idea of an unknown online life no one knew about is that Andrew's behaviour makes no sense unless something was going on with him that other people either knew nothing about or did not recognize.

The other option is that Andrew spontaneously decided to skip school and go to London for no particular reason and then somehow end up so completely lost that no one has ever found him. I suppose that might be possible, but it would be something that would be essentially beyond explanation. Even if his body was found somewhere, there would still be the almost surely unanswerable questions of how and why and what.