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

[avob00]

If you search Andrew's missing Facebook group that was created by his father back in 2007, all the posts by those who knew and didn’t know him in the first two years of him going missing generally assumed that he had ran away.

it’s hard to understand how something bad could have happened in London and his body was never found.

he must have ventured directly out of the city into one of the further zones and something happened then.

unlike a lot of other missing cases that I've seen, the police seem to keep an open mind that he could still be alive whenever they make appeals. They generally speak about him in the present tense.

 

[TheRockingRev]

1. I don't think the answer will ever be found because the evidence no longer exists.
2. The British Transport Police (BTP) claim they could not locate Andrew despite knowing the exact train he was on.
3. This task is what BTP is set up to do. Their claim is analogous to a surgeon performing the wrong operation on a patient. It is a level of incompetence that cannot be explained away (and never has).
4. The BTP failed to request any footage from the surrounding area.
5. The SYP detective attended after 27 days (just when all CCTV was being deleted) and coincidentally found Andrew in minutes.
6. Two men were arrested in 2021.
7. Shortly before they were released, SYP deleted 96,000 pieces of evidence.
8. Anyone who has worked in IT knows that deleting 96,000 files requires intent and constant monitoring. It is impossible to do this "accidently".
9. The two men were released shortly after.
10. This pattern is consistent with people "at the coalface" doing their job whilst actors above them in the same organisations remove the evidence.
11. The UK police has a documented history of this where "self-preservation" led to the disappearance or "mishandling" of records. (e.g., Jean-Charles De-Menezes, the Hillsborough inquests or the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, to name but a few).

In respect of point 11 - there were also missing files in regard to another youngster who vanished in London, Martin Allen in 1979.

 

[matchaoatmilk]

Why would they delete the evidence? Did a policeman kill Andrew?

Why would a policeman kill a random teenager that we can assume did not provoke them or kept to themselves?

 

[Ellymoo]

Why would a policeman kill a random teenager that we can assume did not provoke them or kept to themselves?

Well that's what I don't understand and that's what makes me think I am reading that post incorrectly.

 

[Ellymoo]

In respect of point 11 - there were also missing files in regard to another youngster who vanished in London, Martin Allen in 1979.

Do we have any theory as to why this is?

 

[wtiger]

usually police files vanish or go walkabout when someone has neglected to act properly during the investigation....there are many many cases where police wrongdoing has resulted in paperwork or electronic files vanishing into thin air

it is almost always to cover incompetence rather than the actual perpetrator being a police officer (with a few very notable exceptions of course)

 

[Cedars]

IMO, a police investigation is triggered when there are indications of foul play.

The 'indications of foul play' includes people going missing in suspicious circumstances.

If police do not find any suspicious circumstances, they have nothing to investigate, and will wait and see if something suspicious turns up.

IMO, there's no reason to believe that police had started an actual investigation, by finding evidence that anything suspicious had happened to Andrew. They knew that he was not met by anyone at the station in London.

Expectations that they should have tried to trace his path through the busy streets of London using CCTV are, IMO, very unrealistic.

Police do not have infinite resources - they will do that when it is in the service of solving a known kidnapping or murder, etc, but, in London, probably not in the case of theft of thousands in jewelry from a shop, or in the case of a boy who deliberately left his home to visit London, by himself.

JMO

 

[Inspector Evans]

Why would a policeman kill a random teenager that we can assume did not provoke them or kept to themselves?

Not sure I quite subscribe to the theory myself but someone abusing their power to co-exert him into their vehicle e.g Sarah Everard.

I could picture a scenario where he's walking around London at night that Friday lost and with nowhere to stay and perhaps a patrol car pulls up by the kerb but even then it would be to check on his welfare and take him back to a police station and inform his parents.

 

[Inspector Evans]

IMO, a police investigation is triggered when there are indications of foul play.

The 'indications of foul play' includes people going missing in suspicious circumstances.

If police do not find any suspicious circumstances, they have nothing to investigate, and will wait and see if something suspicious turns up.

IMO, there's no reason to believe that police had started an actual investigation, by finding evidence that anything suspicious had happened to Andrew. They knew that he was not met by anyone at the station in London.

Expectations that they should have tried to trace his path through the busy streets of London using CCTV are, IMO, very unrealistic.

Police do not have infinite resources - they will do that when it is in the service of solving a known kidnapping or murder, etc, but, in London, probably not in the case of theft of thousands in jewelry from a shop, or in the case of a boy who deliberately left his home to visit London, by himself.

JMO

Yeah I just think the frustration there is we have the XC footage and then nothing. Could've at least in the hour after that sighting got a digital footprint of his movements. Could've checked everything leading to that Pizza Hut sighting to see if that was genuine and where he went to get there. So potential for more eye witnesses if they knew 100% he was in Oxford Street and hung around for a while.

Certainly not expecting anything from the evening as he could've been anywhere away from the centre at that point.

 

[Cedars]

Yeah I just think the frustration there is we have the XC footage and then nothing. Could've at least in the hour after that sighting got a digital footprint of his movements. Could've checked everything leading to that Pizza Hut sighting to see if that was genuine and where he went to get there. So potential for more eye witnesses if they knew 100% he was in Oxford Street and hung around for a while.

Certainly not expecting anything from the evening as he could've been anywhere away from the centre at that point.

I agree, it's very frustrating - IMO police wish they could solve the case, too.

But IMO, feeling frustrated and wishing we knew what happened, doesn't automatically mean blaming police.

JMO

 

[Inspector Evans]

I agree, it's very frustrating - IMO police wish they could solve the case, too.

But IMO, feeling frustrated and wishing we knew what happened, doesn't automatically mean blaming police.

JMO

I think it is speed like most things. Not sure when the waitress at Pizza Hut came forward with her claim she'd served a person matching Andrew's description that Friday but if this was still September 2007 then there was opportunity to have a look at any CCTV around Pizza Hut at the times she gave so from that you could see what direction Andrew was coming in from and then going and try to piece together some more movements.

It didn't happen and we are all just guessing really what happened after he walked on from XC exit.

 

[avob00]

I think it is speed like most things. Not sure when the waitress at Pizza Hut came forward with her claim she'd served a person matching Andrew's description that Friday but if this was still September 2007 then there was opportunity to have a look at any CCTV around Pizza Hut at the times she gave so from that you could see what direction Andrew was coming in from and then going and try to piece together some more movements.

It didn't happen and we are all just guessing really what happened after he walked on from XC exit.

From what Kevin has said, the Pizza Hut did have the ability to store CCTV footage for a longer period of time, but unfortunately the CCTV wasn’t working on the day that Andrew was in the place. So many false hopes in this case.

 

[avob00]

I know they said that somebody wrote in anonymously in relation to a possible sighting and said they were the person in Leominister who disappeared before the police came down the stairs when appealed for the person to come forward….

I think that it was a different person and that whoever visited the station that day did know what happened to Andrew and where he could be.

Unfortunately chickened out in the last minute which is understandable given what they could’ve had to say. Maybe they were worried for their own safety or worried about incriminating themselves? It’s a lot of effort to go to a station in an industrial estate. We don’t know if they went by foot or car.

Again, another case of the CCTV plague in this case. No CCTV in or outside the station grounds to identify this man.

You don’t travel to a police station in an industrial estate to give a potential sighting, you can phone in

Definitely think that person knew where Andrew is but changed their mind in the last second to come forward.

 

[TheRockingRev]

I know they said that somebody wrote in anonymously in relation to a possible sighting and said they were the person in Leominister who disappeared before the police came down the stairs when appealed for the person to come forward….

I think that it was a different person and that whoever visited the station that day did know what happened to Andrew and where he could be.

Unfortunately chickened out in the last minute which is understandable given what they could’ve had to say. Maybe they were worried for their own safety or worried about incriminating themselves? It’s a lot of effort to go to a station in an industrial estate. We don’t know if they went by foot or car.

Again, another case of the CCTV plague in this case. No CCTV in or outside the station grounds to identify this man.

You don’t travel to a police station in an industrial estate to give a potential sighting, you can phone in

Definitely think that person knew where Andrew is but changed their mind in the last second to come forward.

It's a really tough one to call. I do agree with your points - but then the flipside is that someone who was hell-bent on being a hoaxer would have equally have gone to the efforts of going to the police station (which from a map isn't too far from residential areas).
But the reason I think you could be right is that whoever it was wasn't, up to a point, bothered about being seen in person as they actually went to the police station.

Out of interest what makes you think it was a different person who wrote in?

Not sure if you know, but do you know how much the police tried to trace the person who turned up at the police station?

 

[Inspector Evans]

From what Kevin has said, the Pizza Hut did have the ability to store CCTV footage for a longer period of time, but unfortunately the CCTV wasn’t working on the day that Andrew was in the place. So many false hopes in this case.

Oh...that's a real shame.

 

[Inspector Evans]

I know they said that somebody wrote in anonymously in relation to a possible sighting and said they were the person in Leominister who disappeared before the police came down the stairs when appealed for the person to come forward….

I think that it was a different person and that whoever visited the station that day did know what happened to Andrew and where he could be.

Unfortunately chickened out in the last minute which is understandable given what they could’ve had to say. Maybe they were worried for their own safety or worried about incriminating themselves? It’s a lot of effort to go to a station in an industrial estate. We don’t know if they went by foot or car.

Again, another case of the CCTV plague in this case. No CCTV in or outside the station grounds to identify this man.

You don’t travel to a police station in an industrial estate to give a potential sighting, you can phone in

Definitely think that person knew where Andrew is but changed their mind in the last second to come forward.

Wasn't there an alleged sighting of him around Shrewsbury in 2008? Leominster is an hour or so from Shrewsbury so not sure when that sighting was reported in the press but presuming it was a follow up but no one there and so any potential information was lost although you'd think if a person genuinely did want to say something credible they'd have got in touch with the family or other police forces handing this investigation.

Leominster Police station is incredibly random place to visit unless you do live around the corner....

 

[avob00]

Wasn't there an alleged sighting of him around Shrewsbury in 2008? Leominster is an hour or so from Shrewsbury so not sure when that sighting was reported in the press but presuming it was a follow up but no one there and so any potential information was lost although you'd think if a person genuinely did want to say something credible they'd have got in touch with the family or other police forces handing this investigation.

Leominster Police station is incredibly random place to visit unless you do live around the corner....

As far as I'm aware, I could be wrong, but I researched a lot of the case.

I think they appealed for the person who had come to the police station to make contact in 2008 and someone apparently wrote in anonymously to BBC and said they were this person and had a potential siting but it was investigated and went nowhere.

But it was never verified if they really were the person and as I said, it was an anonymous tip.