What do people think happened to missing Andrew Gosden?

[Lovefromjuliaxo]

Just curious.

i sadly thought the arrests would come to nothing a couple of years ago, but it sucked to be right.

I think the chat room andyroo thing was just a troll honestly. If Andrew had gone missing of his own accord and was still alive, I don’t think he would still be using the name Andrew and using it online.

Yes it would be pretty weird.
Plus I can’t see how someone could survive with no ID etc in this day and age. And not be found. Where would they get money from. I saw they even checked dental and eye prescription records.

There are lots of threads in here too.

I will say I don’t have ID (don’t ever go on holiday, epileptic so don’t drive, don’t go to pubs and clubs and don’t drink) and I don’t think hospitals require you to show proof of who you are, or opticians (he had strong prescription glasses and would need to get them changed over the years)- but I really don’t see him surviving…he’s not touched his bank account since, and could never get a proper job or a home due to having no NI number. He’d have to move from place to place working cash in hand, and rely on someone else to live with.

he could’ve grown a hairstyle that covered his ears I guess. I just don’t see it happening though. From what his dad said, he was naive and had little street smarts. As I said (and I’m trying to be careful about how I word it), I personally think he kept one or both of the mobile phones he allegedly lost and was contacting a groomer on it. I think the groomer had reg. contact with the family (who don’t know whar they did) and probably is still in contact with Andrew’s parents.

RE dental, he could walk into a&e if he had a toothache and make his name up or say he was homeless, but I really don’t think he is alive x

Yes tbh NI number was what I thought of first, and I can’t see how you’d constantly get illegal jobs especially at that age and as you say have the street smarts to do so. And find somewhere to live.

I not sure if I’d think it was someone they knew. I saw they did have family in London but I don’t know…I guess I don’t know
enough about the story but seems too awful to contemplate. I was thinking he met someone online.

I’m always utterly astounded by the fact that so many people go missing every year, (170,000 in UK and in London around 55,000 and counting, although obviously the majority are found / return home safely). and how someone can just disappear in somewhere as small (relatively) as the UK.

I can understand it more in somewhere like USA where there are massive areas of true wilderness, with communities that have no contact with state / local authorities and can survive, but we have no true wilderness to the same degree, and it’s not possible to live totally offgrid and survive here.

I’m a search and rescue volunteer, so have read lots of research around missing people, and obviously am involved in some of the instances, and even with that minor level of contact with the families, it is hard to let go and accept you won’t have an answer to some of the cases, I can’t even bare to think about how it feels for the families.

Such a sad case. Andrew and his sister are pretty much identical to my 2 children, almost every word written about Andrew before he went missing could have been written about my son. My son also lost phones and wasn't bothered about them, I think that is what really happened and also the no social media, no internet, also think that's right. I suspect Andrew might have been autistic like my son as they are so very similar, my son was also called the human calculator and expected to get to Oxbridge.

The bullying, similar situation, school would say not bullied but behaviour indicates otherwise though I am not sure that would have been enough to make him go missing on its own. I feel I should know the answer to this. I do suspect the 4 hour walk home was not as it was a nice day, it was distress from school or avoiding home for some reason. I do wonder if someone in a position of respectability was abusing him and maybe threatening him and it was someone the family trusted and maybe let in their house and he felt he would not be believed but wanted to avoid them. Maybe they threatened something bad would happen if he told anyone. So he went to London thinking he could start a new life hence the single ticket. The not taking the charger or coat I don't think means anything he was like an absent minded professor. But there's no way he would have been streetwise and don't think the family were either, seem very trusting. Whether he could still be alive, I hope so. He's very intelligent and has limited contact with people so evading surveillance may have been possible. Hair would likely be long or wear hoodies. But money, that is what concerns me or that he ran into bad people. The only way I can see it is being possible he's still alive is if someone had been with him who provided money.

Other possibility is some kind of breakdown - the school maths teacher is saying he could have got a First at Oxbridge, his parents are saying he's cleverer than his sister who got 5 A stars at A level and into Oxford for PPE and had just got her GCSE results. It may have made him think he was invincible and capable of anything and vastly overestimated his ability to manage alone in London or had a breakdown of some sort like psychosis though normally grades would go before that. I do wonder if the London trip was either to avoid a family friend who was abusing him or it was rebellion / escaping - he was reading a book about a new life and another very anti-religion. I hope he is still alive and OK. The theory online that his money got stolen is very possible and then could see the sleeping on a bench being true which sadly may not have had a good ending. Its so hard to know though and hope one day it is known.

He is not forgot at Missing People

Often his poster will be on the site and in places like train stations and bus stations
On X, Facebook etc

I think the police have also investigated and dismissed the abuse close to home line so it maybe that didn't happen.

I've never heard of him.

Sounds like a runaway who was subsequently taken in and exploited.

Hope he's not being kept against his will somewhere.

I think things like this are worse than a death.

Providing a fake alibi would probably be astonishingly easy IMO at the time, considering all their concentration was on Kevin (Andrew’s father) - I also think said groomer could’ve got a “proxy” - so either a friend or fake taxi driver to meet Andrew at kings X and coax him into the car so they could maintain their alibi.

“I do wonder if someone in a position of respectability was abusing him and maybe threatening him and it was someone the family trusted and maybe let in their house and he felt he would not be believed but wanted to avoid them. Maybe they threatened something bad would happen if he told anyone”

I completely think this could be the case.

Interesting.
Did the police have any suspects back when this all
happened that were in the media etc that people would known about?

No, they concentrated all their efforts thinking it was Andrew’s father and/or that Andrew was a runaway. They wasted valuable time, both in tracking Andrew down and in identifying any other suspects. A couple of years back they arrested and bailed two men for CP and trafficking, but both got released from investigation a year on, I suspect one likely had “barely legal” porn which featured a man or boy who bore a resemblance to Andrew. They likely had to track said man down and prove he wasn’t Andrew. Hence it taking so long.

Andrew was off school that day and the school rung the wrong number, so he wasn’t reported missing until 7pm that day when he didn’t appear for dinner- his parents weren’t the type to check in on him after school.

FWIW I have my own thoughts, but don’t think any of Andrew’s family were involved at all.

It's an interesting question, by coincidence
I have heard of this child quite recently.
I don't think it's inappropriate to ask.
Maybe the chap is living his own life somewhere else under a different name.

apparantly Andrew had no social media and never even had an email address. They checked his psp records and it had never been connected online. They also checked his sisters laptop (the only comp in the house which had just been bought a few weeks prior)

Andrew’s parents didn’t have mobile phones or computers of their own, I am unsure if his sister had a mobile but if she did I assume it was checked. School computers and local libraries were checked and nothing untoward was found. I don’t know if his friends devices were checked but I assume so.

Andrew’s two missing phones didn’t turn up when the police ransacked the house and haven’t turned up since, so it’s very possible he still had them and took them on the day he went missing.

personally as I say, I think he could’ve still had one or both of those phones, or been travelling further out to further internet cafes, but I think someone close to home who he saw regularly irl was grooming him.

I do wonder if the police inaction is really incompetence given that a) It is quite difficult to just disappear off the radar of the State and b) There is a suggestion of county-run paedophile rings, both Lambeth and Surrey being well-known stomping grounds of the past. That said, it's odd to think that just any jobbing police officer would know or be complicit that - it isn't plausible - but they can I think get warned off various areas of investigation - that seems to be what happened in the Stephen Lawrence case, it's clear the racist gangsters and thugs were mates with the Met, indeed criminal elements do infiltrate the local police, Line of Duty-style, it's just the run of things.

Surrey Police were very keen on blaming the family over the disappearance of Milly Dowler too - and it was later found that killer Levi Bellfield worked at a series of London care homes, but oddly Met head Dame Cressida Dick was discinclined to look into that file, which stayed on her desk for a year.

It often seems the police don't really work to a playbook when it comes to Missing Persons, you think they'd have a Top 10 list of things to do and not to do and then given the circumstances, hand it over to or at the very least liaise with a crack investigation team with experience. It always instead seems to be a case of 'let the locals deal with it so they can keep it under wraps if needs be.'

The investigation seemed to focus on Andrews father according to press reports even having his car randomly stopped and searched and also there were delays in the London investigation. I also wonder about the quality of any grooming checks given the quality of the rest of the investigation. I feel so sorry for Andrews Dad, clearly loved him so much.

I don't think he would have had either phone or used social media or email, think those were genuinely lost. I know my son lost a couple of phones then refused another and on email if someone messaged him he might reply back in 6 months with some random reply but not normal communication. So if it was grooming or sexual abuse plus threats I think it would have been someone local and known to him. My bet would be on someone connected to school, church or scouts but I don't think we should be naming individuals for libel reasons if nothing else. Plus there's no proof. I could see him being groomed by someone who complimented him a lot when he had no friends and probably a man and his family are very religious. He seemed to be turning away from religion so I think if religious not voluntary and maybe threatened. The family seem incredibly trusting of anyone in these groups with one even having the key to their house. And they also didn't notice him missing until dinner time, nothing really wrong with that but does open up more time when he could have been with someone unnoticed.

Though I saw on Reddit a similar person who said at 14 they were like Andrew and bullied at school, which I would be surprised if he wasn't given no friends, and one day they said just couldn't face school and ran away expecting a stranger to take them in and start a new life. A 40 year old man did agree to help them but just raped them and then they called home got collected but nobody knows about rape. They said they took very little too. Something similar can see happening but without him escaping alive. I know my son is either like the most intelligent adult in thinking or a 5 year old who no danger awareness or planning for more than next few hours.

It's such a long time though, even if he went voluntarily to meet up and live with someone it's so far on.

Someone from his church was spoken about before on Reddit (I don’t wanna name names) and said “church person” threatened the mods with legal action for mentioning his name- not his actual name iirc but who he was in the community. So I’m very careful on forums such as this. But said person has been involved with the press a lot regarding Andrew and has commented stuff to daily mail etc. you can DM if you want the link. He also saw Andrew alone in the park on the morning of his disappearance.

edit: I assume you know who i am talking about when you mention one with a key to his house! Said person had an alibi, but like you I worry if the police really checked everyone enough, plus they could’ve used a proxy or taxi driver (real or fake) to meet Andrew at kings X. I do feel awful for Andrew’s father who tried to hang himself due to all the pressure on him with police blaming him at first. The church family friend found him in the nick of time as he held a key. He weirdly went to the press and outed a private fb post his daughter did about the day they discovered Andrew’s dad trying to end his life.

@Lovefromjuliaxo what is your connection to this case, you know a lot of detail? Who are you

No connection, it’s a well known case and Andrew’s dad has done podcasts/ there is a lot of articles online and there’s a subreddit. I read a lot about true crime.

I think Andrew, Lee Boxell and Kevin Hicks were probably preyed on by older men then killed sadly.

I’ve not read much about Kevin hicks, but I think Lee died when he tried to intervene when someone was abusing a girl at the unofficial “youth club” near him. Unfortunately said person was a gravedigger so could’ve easily got rid of a body without much suspicion. The graveyard was dug up but they couldn’t exhume the graves without permission- which they didn’t get.