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

[vagab0nd]

I would be surprised if Andrew knew where the Kings Cross Thameslink station (where trains to Brighton could be boarded) was. It was East of Kings Cross and you had to cross roads to get there. The trains were below ground and the entrance wasn't very prominent. Most people who caught trains there were going north. They arrived by underground and so didn't go up to ground level.

Kings Cross was fairly seedy at that time. There were always a few homeless people hanging around outside the station and drugs were dealt there. There was a very seedy pub with strippers and heroin was a big problem in that area. Just North of Kings Cross was an awful area with disused gasometers etc I think it was around that time that a female Austrian tourist visiting London walked into that area. Some kids attacked her, gang raped her and then threw her into a canal.

This video of the station from 2007 makes it look like just a bog standard station. At first glance you wouldn't get a seedy vibe:

 

[Professor Moriarty]

I quite often left Kings Cross Thameslink and walked West to Euston. This meant I walked across the front of Kings Cross mainline station. Usually I was on the opposite side of the road. When I returned, I was on the same side as Kings Cross mainline station. There would always be people hanging around. I was walking with a purpose and they never bothered me, but I imagine that drug addicts would give off certain signals, hang around and make eye contact with people they thought were dealers. The dealers would do the same.

Young people, possibly homeless, living in squats etc hung around. At some stage, a sort of portacabin was installed as a mini police station. It had one way mirror windows and cctv. Dodgy people still hung around though. As far as most people going about their business were concerned, the area would just seem a bit rough. But a young person hanging around might give off different signals. Someone might "befriend" him.

In the early 1980s Argyle Square, opposite the station, with cheap hotels, was a busy red light district, busy even in daylight. That was cleaned up, partly with traffic measures to stop kerb crawling.

There used to be touts for illegal minicabs approaching people leaving the platforms in the mainline station. Now there are problems with people stealing luggage. (A number of Algerians have been arrested for this.) Jenson Button had luggage, containing valuable items, stolen just outside St. Pancas (which, of course, is next to Kings Cross).

Since Thameslink trains started using St.Pancras, I haven't had to cross Kings Cross station. The whole area is supposed to be being developed. My point is that, historically, the area has always been rough. Around the world, many big railway stations attract "rough" and homeless people. beggars and sex workers. (I recently witnessed this around Geneva railway station.) I suspect that the area behind the station is still somewhat rough.

Most people get off trains and enter the tube system within the station or get taxis from the rank. Some old hands get the bus. When I was young, living in Lincolnshire, and used the Kings Cross mainline station, my father used to warn me not to "look like a plough jockey up from the country". Andrew, leaving the front of the station, possibly looking around, might have been seen in that way.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

A lot of major train stations had and always will have dangerous characters hanging around. But that can be said for a lot of places.... large parks, food courts, anywhere people with bad intentions can sit and hang out and watch people.

I don't think it's more likely something happened at the train station than anywhere else in London.

It was broad daylight, and he wasn't just hanging around the station like a "runaway" might. I don't think it was likely he was approached right after the CCTV footage.

So what I wonder is, what scenario does anyone here think actually could have happened there at King's Cross?

If he was approached and offered most things, I think he would have declined and walked away. He didn't need food, shelter, a ride somewhere, etc. This was a city he loved and had some familiarity with and wanted to explore. He knew how to use the trains and buses.

He declined the return ticket, so he knew how to decline something that didn't interest him.

 

[Sjöberg]

I'm stating the obvious here, but IMO Andrew had a reason for coming to London on that friday and that reason would give us the context of how he acted and where he went next.

He was offered to go to London pretty recently and he did not want to. What made him want to go on that day? Why in secret, not ask? Why let parents get the The Call from school and get in trouble for skipping school?

IMO, the reason to go to London was 1) new enough and 2) would not have gotten the approval of his parents. I don't think was a museum or even a concert - at least just not by itself. To me it really sounds like he went to meet with someone he liked a lot, and that someone was probably not in London during the summer. Like either a student in London, who spent summers back at home or someone moving to London for the first time.