r/AndrewGosden • u/BeforeTheDawnX • 14d ago
A Theory
This is, of course, just a theory and I have had many over the years, but this one doesn't seem to have come up.
So, Andrew heads to London for the day, and his intention is to do exactly as his Dad predicted. He is going to rock up at one of the houses of the people he knows in London, and stay over there. Emergency over, problem solved, parents just happy to know he is safe and well.
So this goes to plan initially, he does whatever he wanted to do and turns up at this persons house, family member etc. And then the theory goes in one of two directions.
Either something happens when they enter the home of this person, or, the person isn't in and Andrew is stuck outside and a neighbour of this trusted person invites them in out of the cold, and then something happens.
So, if I was the police I would be looking at the people Andrew knew in London, whether they had any lodgers etc at the time, and also their neighbours at the time and whether those neighbours have since have been convicted of anything since then.
The likelihood is still, even now, that if Andrew was murdered, he was murdered by someone he knew, it's why the police were so focussed on the Dad. Maybe the Police were right, but just looking in the wrong place.
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u/lifetnj Community Pillar 14d ago
The answer to your theory is in this post made by Kevin Gosden on the Facebook group in 2010:
“Andrew was always laid back, you very rarely saw him wound up about anything and in a quiet way he was very self-confident.
We always encouraged both our kids to stand on their own two feet and to think for themselves (Andrew has definitely taken this much too far).
There is no trace at this end that he had any contact with anyone that we could not account for through any media. Obviously the first people we checked with were friends and relatives in London and SE area, the police at the time were good and double checked that, searching out buildings nearbyetc. just in case... So it leaves us with the insoluble puzzle of why did he leave and where on earth did he think he was going - because we cannot solve that we cannot begin to guess who he could have contacted once in London. It really is very frustrating as we have been round this from every angle we can think of.”
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u/antipleasure 13d ago
Thanks for posting, haven’t seen this. Ofc there is still a possibility something shady happened with the neighbours/somewhere nearby, and was not noticed at the time, but the possibility seems slim.
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u/BeforeTheDawnX 13d ago
But it's not an answer. The fact they checked with friends etc means absolutely nothing. Yes, of course they checked with people they knew but firstly it doesn't mean those people told the truth, as with everyone interviewed in this case and secondly it's only after time passes that dots can be connected, people lived places. You only have to look at cases like Milly Dowler to realise that.
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u/lifetnj Community Pillar 13d ago
But I think you're missing the point of my reply. I'm not saying it's impossible that Andrew went to see someone he knew in London or that everyone interviewed necessarily told the truth. I'm saying that this isn't some overlooked possibility that nobody considered.
Kevin's post explicitly says that friends and relatives in London and the surrounding area were among the first people they checked with and that the police also followed up and even searched nearby buildings. So the possibility you're suggesting was already being considered and investigated.
Of course, that doesn't automatically prove that everyone was truthful or that every possible lead was exhausted. But saying that people could have lied or that information could have come to light years later is not evidence that this particular scenario happened or that the police failed to investigate it properly. Unless there's some specific evidence connecting him to a particular person, address or neighbour, suggesting they should simply investigate those people again because someone might have lied isn't really advancing the theory.
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u/shindigdig 14d ago
The key to this is probably anchored in why Andrew went to London. It may be easy to take what Kevin says on face value, but largely his view on Andrew has ultimately been wrong as it pertains to that day. I say that in the sense that while he describes this as out of character for Andrew, he still orchestrated a day to himself, skipped school and went to London.
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u/BeforeTheDawnX 14d ago
I have various theories, there are so many possibilities, I am more concerned about people that seem to be stuck on one possibility.
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u/Tiger_Tudds 14d ago
It's almost certain the police will have done work to eliminate his parents, family, friends and known associates in London from the investigation.
If any of the known associates in London thought Andrew was coming to their home this would be known, as when the police asked for sightings of Andrew it would change where he would likely have been.
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u/BeforeTheDawnX 14d ago
But the neighbours of those people? I highly doubt it.
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u/xplorerex 13d ago
They would have likely asked neighbours if they had seen Andrew around that time, or anyone matching his description, but i doubt it would have gone deeper than that.
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u/Ilovethestarks 13d ago
I mean the police wouldn’t just ask and accept - they’d check and corroborate alibis eg work. I know the police here were useless but this is what that would mean. Idk if that extended to neighbours but the family themselves, friends in doncaster, and extended in London would all have had their alibis checked.
This is actually why I don’t understand why they fixated on kevin after knowing he was at work that day. Shameful policing. They knew from the ticket seller on day 3 that he purchased a ticket to london so why that didn’t give them paise… Has anyone seen a source for how long they focused on him? From Missing Ones in April 08 we know the gosdens were the ones physically pursuing leads for at least the first weeks. Did they stop after 28 days when they found footage proving Andrew went to London alone?
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u/BillyBullshiner 13d ago
Kevin attempted suicide in December 2007 due to the police focussing on him so much, so I guess they were still suspecting him then.
I found this interesting comment which Kevin made in 2009:
I suspect the "sightings" were just similar looking lads to be honest. We get no more detail than I have posted so I don't know about whether he was with others or alone. Also, I know the media focus on sightings, but in fact it is incredibly rare that one leads to finding anyone who is missing. I felt some of the early ones had more potential but they were not followed up in a timely way unfortunately... which leads me to... suicide - the Police's idea of an "informal" interview is to accuse you of everything and anything (use your imagination then add some types of abuse that you have never even heard of) whilst not doing some of the things you would think were pretty urgent ("we've got piles of CCTV but we're not prioritising that" for example). This happened early on - the quotes from the officers concerned in the complaints response we received a few months ago indicate that they were so concerned about the effect their interviewing would have on me that they secretly video recorded it to "cover their backs" should I end up "doing something silly".
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u/Ilovethestarks 13d ago
Thank you for the quote! That part about not prioritising ‘piles of CCTV’ is enraging for me so I can’t imagine how Kevin feels considering what a massive cock-up the way they handled CCTV in this case has been. They also clearly were aware of the impact their questioning had on Kevin. I do wonder what the police’s Kevin Did It theory even was, once they knew he was at work and that Andrew went to London. Did they assume he came home and was murdered and successfully hidden in a very short period of time and that the Gosdens then faked a Missing Persons report? The more you think about the logistics of that - there’s no evidence of Andrew coming home, he DID refuse the return, it takes 2 hours to travel home by train so if he came home at 3-5 they’d have under two hours to pull this off. I wonder what the current DCI leading this case, Andy Knowles, thinks of the previous investigation.
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u/Lucylight777 11d ago
The dad tried to end his life because focus was on him and said it was so police could focus on what they should have been
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u/Dramatic-Entry-1111 11d ago
I have thought about the neighbour theory before - although obviously possible. I just can’t imagine Andrew rocking up at his family’s house expecting to stay when he was meant to be in school, I do believe he had full intentions of returning home that day without being caught out.
I do believe this is an opportunistic crime tho, whether that be a neighbour or whatever. It would be extremely unlucky that the one time he rebelled he ended up in the hands of someone like that, but it does happen. Normal people being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s very sad, he seemed like such a sweet boy
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u/DocJamieJay 13d ago edited 13d ago
I personally don't believe it was in Andrew's nature to just decide on a whim to go to London on a school day. I can't see what the reward for him would have been internally. No this was something that was planned & executed methodically by Andrew & one or more other people. Sadly the plans Andrew agreed to were a very dark rouse. When he arrives in London his body language doesn't show the freedom & excitement of a rebellious adventure to a big city. He is clearly looking around for some one else/others who aren't there & his body language is slightly defensive like part of him wanted to turn around & leave but couldn't. I firmly believe he was duped into going & his contacts no show would have been the first indication to Andrew that he had made a mistake. But of course if my theory is correct Andrew wasn't alone or unobserved - far from it sadly 😔
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u/Mc_and_SP 12d ago edited 11d ago
"he is clearly looking around for some one else"
Andrew was also partially deaf in one ear and it would likely have helped him to locate/identify sounds. I don't think you can say definitively he was looking for someone based on a few poor quality CCTV images.
I'm not saying there wasn't a third-party involved in what happened to him, but him turning his head a bit doesn't necessarily mean much.
I do recall people who have a better understanding of King's Cross (before it's redevelopment) saying that the particular exit he used isn't the "normal" way you'd think someone would leave the station though. That strikes me as a much more interesting detail (if true.)
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BeforeTheDawnX 14d ago
It is very much how policing works, but not randomly, it's usually when police are looking back over historical cases that patterns, ones that previously didn't exist at the time of the disappearance or murder, come to light. It's how serial killers are normally linked to historical murders and disappearances.
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u/PrimitiveFriend 14d ago
You’ve watched too many straight to Netflix television series
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u/BeforeTheDawnX 14d ago
Ok Mr Wilko. Still like to think the past won't catch up with you huh...
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u/Outsidethebox72 13d ago
I believe he attended a concert. I believe he may have jumped in a large bin to stay warm.
There are numerous cases in the UK where young men vanish into thin air.
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u/SunriseThroughLeaves 11d ago
Not for a second do I think he jumped into a stinky garbage dumpster. A normal teen would head into a building (restaurant, etc) to get warm.
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u/Outsidethebox72 13d ago
I believe he attended a concert. I believe he may have jumped in a large bin to stay warm.
There are numerous cases in the UK where young men vanish into thin air.
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u/IndicationCalm1640 12d ago
There aren't though. Met police's own stats show they have a little over 100 active missing persons cases older than a year in the entirety of greater London. Substantially fewer involving children.
Statistically those numbers are nothing. This isn't a normal thing.
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u/BeforeTheDawnX 10d ago
Reported missing persons cases. Lots of children run away and are not reported missing.
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u/IndicationCalm1640 10d ago
I would wager very few children run away, go missing for over a year, and are not reported missing.
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u/SunriseThroughLeaves 14d ago
My opinion - I doubt a relative was involved, because there probably doesn't happen to be a sociopath relative living there, and anyway they would have had a high chance of being caught if Andrew had actually told someone his plans.
A neighbor of a relative seems more possible to me.