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

[warp3dwing]

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.

I absolutely agree that Mr. Gosden may rose-tint things retrospectively, either consciously or unconsciously. We’re all susceptible to that. But regarding electronics, he had devices at home. His parents kindly provided them. That’s one of the few facts we have!

Any clandestine meetings with someone in London is pure speculation and not based on what is known.

LE can - and often do - get things wrong, but their investigation found absolutely no digital communications from Andrew to anyone. There is no indication he was some kind of computer whiz, and as someone who studies digital forensics and writes digital forensics software, I really doubt he’d be able to cover his tracks and not slip up once.

I’m sorry but I don’t quite understand what you wrote about angry parents. Do you think he was just taking a shopping trip? Would you mind explaining that in more detail? Thank you.

 

[Ellymoo]

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.

That suggests more that the newspaper and the Facebook group do not have all the facts.

Indeed, the asking the victim if they were "happy" says a lot more went on than "calling another student a f**kwit once". It speaks for itself!

I meant to say about the single ticket thing as well: I made that mistake several times when I was young and wasn't sure what I was doing. So I don't read anything into that.