UK UK - Lee Boxell, 15, Sutton (Outer London borough) , 10 September 1988

[BrutishGoose32]

This is the documentary I was thinking of a while back about Lee Boxell (link at the bottom). It's free of charge to watch on Amazon Prime and is part of the "Missing or Murdered" series.

There are a couple of interesting things they mention:

*They say that police believe that multiple sex offenders were attending the shed. Among sex offenders in the area at that time was Peter "Jock" Kirk, a former corrupt policeman who was a known associate of William Lambert, and who had been involved in various forms or criminality with Lambert. In 2012, Kirk was jailed for historic sex offences against girls:

Paedo cop jailed for child sex attacks

A paedophile former police officer has been jailed for 14 years after carrying out a string of depraved sexual assaults on a mother and her…

www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk

*At least one male said that he had been sexually abused at the shed too

*Two females told police that they had seen Lee at the shed.

*One female who used to go there said they were told at the shed that Lee had been killed and wouldn't be coming back

The documentary can be found here:

Amazon.co.uk

Thanks for the tip about the documentary being on Prime. I've seen it before but I'm going to rewatch it, always good to revisit.

I hope the new investigation is going to look into that banker a bit more, seems that it wasn't followed up very thoroughly.

I'm still uncertain on the shed theory, I've seen enough people say they never saw him there ever, to make me have doubt on that.

Having said that, it is interesting that the graveyard has come up twice in connection to Lee's disappearance.

 

[THX]

Thanks for the tip about the documentary being on Prime. I've seen it before but I'm going to rewatch it, always good to revisit.

I hope the new investigation is going to look into that banker a bit more, seems that it wasn't followed up very thoroughly.

I'm still uncertain on the shed theory, I've seen enough people say they never saw him there ever, to make me have doubt on that.

Having said that, it is interesting that the graveyard has come up twice in connection to Lee's disappearance.

No problem - there are also a couple of other documentaries in that Missing series on Amazon: one about Claudia Lawrence and the other about Luke Durbin.

Regarding the shed: It would be very interesting to see exactly which other offenders were believed to have been going there. As with so much of London back then, there was so many sex offenders in that area. I came across an article a while back from the 1980s (which I'll have to dig out) where one of the local video shops near the train station was raided and convictions were made for selling indecent videos of kids. Then of course we had the other incident mentioned in the Marks Williams Thomas podcast where a man came forward and talked about how he'd been abused as a teenager by a man in a local bike shop back in the 80s.

 

[THX]

No problem - there are also a couple of other documentaries in that Missing series on Amazon: one about Claudia Lawrence and the other about Luke Durbin.

Regarding the shed: It would be very interesting to see exactly which other offenders were believed to have been going there. As with so much of London back then, there was so many sex offenders in that area. I came across an article a while back from the 1980s (which I'll have to dig out) where one of the local video shops near the train station was raided and convictions were made for selling indecent videos of kids. Then of course we had the other incident mentioned in the Marks Williams Thomas podcast where a man came forward and talked about how he'd been abused as a teenager by a man in a local bike shop back in the 80s.

Just following on here with some newspaper articles from the archive. This is the article I was thinking of:

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003614/19900518/006/0006

From The Croydon Advertiser & East Surrey Reporter on 18.05.1990, it talks about how a man called Andrew Bull was running a shop in Station Way, Cheam, (a 9 minute walk from St Dunstan's Church) which sold indecent videos and photos of kids, going back to at least 1986. The Police believe that he had been taking quite a lot of money. So we now know that a man was doing roaring business selling child abuse material when Lee disappeared, just a few minutes walk down the road.

Interestingly, Bull actually lived in Thornton Heath in Croydon. Thornton Heath was one of the absolute worst places - it some high profile child sex offenders living there, such as Warren Spinks. Incidentally, the infamous Daniel Morgan murder case was also centred around Thornton Heath as that's where his office was.

This one from The Croydon Advertiser & East Surrey Reporter on 13.11.1987 may also be relevant to the Kevin Hicks case as it gives an idea of how bad the sex offending problem was in Croydon and the surrounding areas:

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003614/19871113/001/0001

The article talks about a 'hidden epidemic' of child abuse in and around the Croydon area. It talks about how teachers were getting training on how to deal with it if a child came forward, and that there had also been a number of paedophiles trying to infiltrate the care system in Croydon. It talks about how a local social worker, Daniel Swales, had just been convicted for offences against 26 boys between the ages of 10-15. Swales had been working at the Orchard Lodge centre for kids with behavioural problems in Penge.

 

[BrutishGoose32]

Just following on here with some newspaper articles from the archive. This is the article I was thinking of:

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003614/19900518/006/0006

From The Croydon Advertiser & East Surrey Reporter on 18.05.1990, it talks about how a man called Andrew Bull was running a shop in Station Way, Cheam, (a 9 minute walk from St Dunstan's Church) which sold indecent videos and photos of kids, going back to at least 1986. The Police believe that he had been taking quite a lot of money. So we now know that a man was doing roaring business selling child abuse material when Lee disappeared, just a few minutes walk down the road.

Interestingly, Bull actually lived in Thornton Heath in Croydon. Thornton Heath was one of the absolute worst places - it some high profile child sex offenders living there, such as Warren Spinks. Incidentally, the infamous Daniel Morgan murder case was also centred around Thornton Heath as that's where his office was.

This one from The Croydon Advertiser & East Surrey Reporter on 13.11.1987 may also be relevant to the Kevin Hicks case as it gives an idea of how bad the sex offending problem was in Croydon and the surrounding areas:

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003614/19871113/001/0001

The article talks about a 'hidden epidemic' of child abuse in and around the Croydon area. It talks about how teachers were getting training on how to deal with it if a child came forward, and that there had also been a number of paedophiles trying to infiltrate the care system in Croydon. It talks about how a local social worker, Daniel Swales, had just been convicted for offences against 26 boys between the ages of 10-15. Swales had been working at the Orchard Lodge centre for kids with behavioural problems in Penge.

Thanks for the info.

Wow, it really makes you think. While people might be certain The Shed and William Lambert was responsible for Lee's disappearance and murder, it actually could've been anything. So many weirdos about at the time.

 

[BrutishGoose32]

In the Mark Williams Thomas podcast, someone (I think it was William Lambert's son) said around that time, he went to the graveyard and found Lambert and others setting off an intense fire down the side of one of the graves (I think). Lambert was pouring kerosene into it and it was very intense. Lambert apparently said he was trying to kill a Wasps' nest but his son said he didn't see any at all. Speculation that obviously they were trying to burn Lee's body.

In the documentary, one of the women who was abused at the shed said that she was told that Lee had been buried in grassland away from the graveyard.

But then of course we have the watch being found quite a distance away. If it was Lee's, how did it get there?

For anyone who might not have heard about the watch before:

Lee had received a Swatch Nautilus 1986 GK102 watch as a birthday present in 1987. The type of watch was very popular at the time but they all had varying designs. A watch face (without the straps) was found near a garage that backs onto Upper Mulgrave Rd, although I haven't been able to find the exact date the watch was found.

On The Detective podcast by Mark Williams Thomas, Peter says that DNA tests have not been able to confirm that it was Lee's watch, but Peter feels it could be his watch. It's worth noting that the watch stopped at 14:22 and the last sighting of Lee was at 13:00.

These images are from Thomas' website:

Peter Boxell comparing a photo of Lee to the missing watch:

A photo of the watch itself:

The photo of Lee wearing a watch:

The location the watch was found, Upper Mulgrave Road:

Found on Google; the same type of watch:

On the podcast, Mark Williams Thomas describes the podcast as being found at Frobisher Court, this is the area today, as seen on Google Maps: