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

[ChatteringBirds]

There is a very high probability they had in their possession digital material which identified Andrew

Welcome to Websleuths, @Phoenix101

If so, why was neither charged with a crime?
I imagine anyone with images of one child/teen usually has many images (ETA: of different child victims) in their possession...(ETA: Which should be enough for a long prison sentence.)

 

[vagab0nd]

There exists two possibilities as I see it.

1) Andrew was groomed and met someone which resulted in his kidnapping and trafficking.

2) Andrew was not groomed, didn't meet anyone but was kidnapped and trafficked.

The police have already given us the biggest clue possible. They stated that two men were arrested on suspicion of kidnap and trafficking in connection with Andrew Gosden and their devices were being analyzed.

There is a very high probability they had in their possession digital material which identified Andrew but they were not involved in kidnapping him. As such the CPS did not charge them and they were released.

I don't understand how any of these other theories hold any weight. The police do not randomly connect kidnapping and trafficking with an old cold case.

I doubt he was trafficked by those two men.

Both men were arrested in London, which is where Andrew was last seen. Because the police were investigating charges of human trafficking, the theory was that Andrew may have been groomed or intercepted by a predatory network operating in the capital. The older suspect was also found to be in possession of indecent images of children, which immediately heightened the police's suspicion that he could have been involved in the exploitation or abduction of a minor like Andrew. Key word being maybe. It's just another theory police had.

The police took nearly two years to analyze the men's devices, looking for any digital footprints such as photos, emails, or chat logs that could date back to 2007 or mention Andrew specifically. They found none.

There was no forensic evidence and the accounts the men gave for their whereabouts in September 2007 were eventually corroborated and confirmed by detectives.

This is all just a baseless theory.

 

[wtiger]

i believe the 2 arrests were based upon a tip-off from a member of the public - presumably this was a dead-end

 

[Rohan21]

i believe the 2 arrests were based upon a tip-off from a member of the public - presumably this was a dead-end

I wonder what made this person tip off the police about the two men.

 

[wtiger]

I wonder what made this person tip off the police about the two men.

could be anything from an overheard rumour in a pub or someone talking rubbish when drunk through to a genuinely held suspicion but we must assume that in this case it lead nowhere i guess

 

[wtiger]

let's not forget about the member of the public who attempted to give info through attending the police station out of hours earlier on in this case.

there are definitely bubblings under the surface that someone somewhere seems to think that they know something

 

[wtiger]

i have always found it interesting that there were suggested sightings of Andrew in Shrewsbury of all places because i seem to recall a case years earlier from crimewatch where a young abductee had been take by two offenders to shrewsbury at some point but for the life of me i cannot recall the exact case

 

[vagab0nd]

i have always found it interesting that there were suggested sightings of Andrew in Shrewsbury of all places because i seem to recall a case years earlier from crimewatch where a young abductee had been take by two offenders to shrewsbury at some point but for the life of me i cannot recall the exact case

To add Timothy Morss and Brett Tyler are in prison til 2045 so not sure how they'd relate.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

This is all just a baseless theory.

But if your theory were true, why would LE first go public with saying the case might be linked to Andrew before seeing evidence and why wasn't the older POI arrested for the images?

I go back and forth about what it might have meant.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

I wonder what made this person tip off the police about the two men.

Welcome to Websleuths @Rohan21. I wonder why LE went public with it, because surely they get a lot of fake "tips" about Andrew's case, claiming certain people were involved, but they don't announce them. So why announce that tip/those arrests?

 

[KathPlumber]

I doubt he was trafficked by those two men.

Both men were arrested in London, which is where Andrew was last seen. Because the police were investigating charges of human trafficking, the theory was that Andrew may have been groomed or intercepted by a predatory network operating in the capital. The older suspect was also found to be in possession of indecent images of children, which immediately heightened the police's suspicion that he could have been involved in the exploitation or abduction of a minor like Andrew. Key word being maybe. It's just another theory police had.

The police took nearly two years to analyze the men's devices, looking for any digital footprints such as photos, emails, or chat logs that could date back to 2007 or mention Andrew specifically. They found none.

There was no forensic evidence and the accounts the men gave for their whereabouts in September 2007 were eventually corroborated and confirmed by detectives.

This is all just a baseless theory.

How do you know this about them giving accounts of their whereabouts that were corroborated and confirmed? I didn’t think that information had ever been released.

 

[vagab0nd]

How do you know this about them giving accounts of their whereabouts that were corroborated and confirmed? I didn’t think that information had ever been released.

police's official statement that they were cleared is the definitive confirmation.

 

[tricia]

police's official statement that they were cleared is the definitive confirmation.

Hi Vagab0nd.
You must provide a link to this statement. You can't post this without an approved source to backup what you are saying. A statement from a law enforcement official is perfect.
Thank you

 

[beubeubeu]

Welcome to Websleuths @Rohan21. I wonder why LE went public with it, because surely they get a lot of fake "tips" about Andrew's case, claiming certain people were involved, but they don't announce them. So why announce that tip/those arrests?

Could be their high confidence that it may be the case... as well as "just" consideration but things being handled by different people than before... or feeling pressured to make the public know that theyre still doing some serious work on Andrew's case.

 

[lisasimpson2010]

FWIW, the part about not buying a return ticket never struck me as suggestive because I constantly do the same thing myself, even in situations where I need a return ticket. First because our train ticketing system is so fiendishly complicated (day returns, open returns, off-peak returns, off-off-peak returns, returns only valid on routes going via Hull, whatever). Second because like many people I practice conversations in my head first and if the other person goes 'off script', my default is just to automatically blurt out no or no thank you, without even processing what the other person said.

In terms of Andrew using the internet, it does seem highly unlikely but it can't be conclusively ruled out. I'm a little confused by the posts confusing "using the Internet" and "having a website." Most people don't have their own websites the way the Columbine shooters did. When I was in my early teens I was completely obsessed with a particular TV show so used to go to an Internet cafe occasionally to visit fansites and fanforums for that show. My internet activity would have been 100% untraceable unless a eyewitness had come forward to say I was at the Internet cafe at a specific day and time, or if someone somehow made the connection between my real life identity and the username I used to post with. I'm not suggesting this as a realistic possibility, just saying it can't be 100% ruled out.

My husband's classmate called someone a f--kwit on the bus and he was immediately expelled. The English don't take bullying lightly. This happened in 2007.

I'm English, and respectfully, I completely disagree with this. Or at least it doesn't chime with my experience or the experience of anyone else I know who went to school here in England. I was in school around the same time as Andrew and bullying was totally ignored.

 

[vagab0nd]

FWIW, the part about not buying a return ticket never struck me as suggestive because I constantly do the same thing myself, even in situations where I need a return ticket. First because our train ticketing system is so fiendishly complicated (day returns, open returns, off-peak returns, off-off-peak returns, returns only valid on routes going via Hull, whatever). Second because like many people I practice conversations in my head first and if the other person goes 'off script', my default is just to automatically blurt out no or no thank you, without even processing what the other person said.

In terms of Andrew using the internet, it does seem highly unlikely but it can't be conclusively ruled out. I'm a little confused by the posts confusing "using the Internet" and "having a website." Most people don't have their own websites the way the Columbine shooters did. When I was in my early teens I was completely obsessed with a particular TV show so used to go to an Internet cafe occasionally to visit fansites and fanforums for that show. My internet activity would have been 100% untraceable unless a eyewitness had come forward to say I was at the Internet cafe at a specific day and time, or if someone somehow made the connection between my real life identity and the username I used to post with. I'm not suggesting this as a realistic possibility, just saying it can't be 100% ruled out.



I'm English, and respectfully, I completely disagree with this. Or at least it doesn't chime with my experience or the experience of anyone else I know who went to school here in England. I was in school around the same time as Andrew and bullying was totally ignored.

I looked up the situation and in 2007 it was posted about in the local newspaper. People were outraged that a boy could be expelled for calling another student a f--kwit once. There's even an inactive Facebook group from 2007 where boys were asking x if he was happy that his bully was now expelled and stuff. Some schools really do take bullying seriously. Obviously not every school in the country, but this one 100% stands by it's anti-bullying values.

 

[rvlvr]

How do you know this about them giving accounts of their whereabouts that were corroborated and confirmed? I didn’t think that information had ever been released.

They don’t. If you run this (and many other posts by this user) through an AI detector it’ll come back as being mostly AI generated. Maybe I’m just getting old but it’s very peculiar imo, and I’ve found the past few pages of this thread incredibly hard to read as a result.

 

[beubeubeu]

I've found several pieces of "residue" from discussions in comments about PSP slim release and people seemed to be extremely EXTREMELY frustrated that UK launch is happening few months after rest of the World got it.
Would be bit of a stretch to consider that may be fueling Andrew's feeling of urgency to finally get that thing, but maybe it somehow played a part?

I also found a lot of random people's pic, waiting in lines to the stores, unfortunately mostly not London and not 2007 but could there possibly still be some pics available from that event? Maybe through waybackmachine? Or I dont know through what.
Was that checked? It should be, but there is no mention of it. There were discussions about Youtube meetup, but nothing really pointed at it being a possibility while him taking PSP, no charger and possibly being seen at the Oxford street where that massive store was (is?) makes it look kinda likely to me.

It does not seem likely that could be the whole reason behind this trip.
PSP was 100% available to buy in Doncaster on 14th.
And even if he could swap his old one for huge discount on the new... adding ticketS cost, a meal... he wouldnt save that much money and obviously there would be a missing day in school. But adding that to hope of meeting someone who was expected or could be expected, or promised to be there could be a decent reason to go.

 

[warp3dwing]

I've found several pieces of "residue" from discussions in comments about PSP slim release and people seemed to be extremely EXTREMELY frustrated that UK launch is happening few months after rest of the World got it.
Would be bit of a stretch to consider that may be fueling Andrew's feeling of urgency to finally get that thing, but maybe it somehow played a part?

I also found a lot of random people's pic, waiting in lines to the stores, unfortunately mostly not London and not 2007 but could there possibly still be some pics available from that event? Maybe through waybackmachine? Or I dont know through what.
Was that checked? It should be, but there is no mention of it. There were discussions about Youtube meetup, but nothing really pointed at it being a possibility while him taking PSP, no charger and possibly being seen at the Oxford street where that massive store was (is?) makes it look kinda likely to me.

It does not seem likely that could be the whole reason behind this trip.
PSP was 100% available to buy in Doncaster on 14th.
And even if he could swap his old one for huge discount on the new... adding ticketS cost, a meal... he wouldnt save that much money and obviously there would be a missing day in school. But adding that to hope of meeting someone who was expected or could be expected, or promised to be there could be a decent reason to go.

From what I’ve gleaned for people who are PSP savvy (I’m not), the new version wasn’t really an upgrade from the version Andrew had, so it doesn’t seem like it would have been worth the dough to get it. That was the gamers’ assessments, anyway.

And as far as trade-ins go, the charger would be necessary.

It seems Andrew had pretty simple tastes, and his family seems to have been generous and supportive. They had just purchased a new computer for Andrew’s sister. Andrew had been given an Xbox, plenty of games, and a nice HiFi system by his parents. I can’t see material possessions as being a driving force behind his decision to disappear.

 

[beubeubeu]

It seems Andrew had pretty simple tastes, and his family seems to have been generous and supportive. They had just purchased a new computer for Andrew’s sister. Andrew had been given an Xbox, plenty of games, and a nice HiFi system by his parents. I can’t see material possessions as being a driving force behind his decision to disappear.

Well, the picture Andrew's dad painted is much different from a naive, introverted, lonely child thats repeatedly painted in coverages of this story. Smart, witty, headstrong, open, chatty, sophisticated and well familiar with London, comfortable talking with adults.
Maybe his dad is tragically not wrong at all and Andrew just wanted to have a nice time away from school, check out the store (or whatever) and then went to someone he (or possibly even they knew) to do exactly what he predicted: went to someone he considered as friend and told them that he skipped school and needs a place to "hide" from angry parents for few hours till they get over that trip - letting that person know that nobody knows he got to London.

In that case all that lack of hints, lack of tracks, lack of leads would make sense as there wouldnt be any as nothing particularly important was supposed to happen, in Andrew's mind.