Like the title says, idk if this has been discussed before but I was thinking about this case yesterday and I wondered, what if he had actually carried out this trip successfully before? Maybe he had been routinely meeting someone there?
Let’s say he was groomed, what if he had made this trip to London before in the way that he had planned to this time - secretly and without anyone knowing. Maybe he had done it before on a weekend and disguised it as ‘going to a friends’ or something along those lines and just wasn’t caught doing it. Maybe he had returned home and acted casual. This idea sort of made me think “okay so what if he did?” And then I thought that it could explain the grooming theory. Maybe there was a group he was involved with. Anything. I know that when I was a teenager there were things I did multiple times but only got caught once doing. And it was easy to make it look like it was my first time doing it too, to avoid further trouble. Idk. Just a thought
It’s not totally impossible but I would say it’s improbable - we know he had perfect attendance at school so he could have only done it on weekends and during the holidays, when his parents would have been mindful of where he was. It would also have been more expensive to travel. I suspect him clearing his bank account on the day of his disappearance suggests this was the only time he did it.
Yeah the way he emptied the bank account made me think otherwise too.
I think that's correct I believe it was the one and only time he did it, why he didn't take his charger or his birthday money I don't know and I think that's the mystery that some people get a bit overexcited about suggesting that he had the intention of returning that day but the one way ticket and emptying his bank account suggest something else to me
He couldn’t have done it in the summer because when Kevin Gosden talked about Andrew's school break (summer 2007) on a podcast a few years ago he said that his wife was at home with the children the entire summer because she worked only during school terms, so she surely would have noticed if he had disappeared for an entire day that summer.
Could he have gone and told his mom he was hanging out with a friend?
I don't know if he had friends with whom he would spend hours at a time, sneaking off to London would have taken over 4 hours of journey time there and back including traveling to Doncaster station, hiding the financial cost from his parents might have been difficult too plus to me Andrew seemed like something of a loner although I don't know that for certain, there's been discussion on here about the lack of phone or access to the Internet which would have made the idea of him being groomed tricky but not impossible, even back in my day when I was a teenager in the very early 70s we'd get up to a lot of stuff without parents knowing although I think we were given a lot more freedom back then and there was no mobile phones to ring home, no Internet to be groomed on and no cctv tracking our movements
Day trip to London is certainly possible, I’ve done it from Newcastle which is of course significantly further than Doncaster. But yes, I read that Andrew did not have friends that were close enough that he would spend days at their homes, so I don’t see how that could’ve been done
Yeah I get what you mean. I sort of just thought maybe he was lonely in Doncaster and then perhaps met someone there somehow
I think it's unlikely that he's been to London sneakily before, but I do think there's a decent chance that he went out to places, perhaps just on foot in Doncaster, which his parents had no clue about. Andrew could've easily stopped at a local shop on the way home from school to buy some things for his day out to London, or even gone to meet someone, make a phone call, use public Wifi, etc.
I've always thought it seems like a really big step to go from rarely leaving the house to sneaking off to the other side of the country, and there there must have been some things in between we have no idea about even if they're not really related to the reason why Andrew disappeared.
there was that whole thing about him all of the sudden choosing to walk the long way home that added an extra hour to his trip, potentially he was looking for freedom in some way.
Yes, we do have evidence he got up to things without his parents knowing, even if it was like you say just a way to have some freedom and change up his routine a bit.
You made a good point, and I never thought of that, in the years I am trying to figure out this case. Maybe he did it before.
Yeah, I was just thinking about this case as I so often do, and I thought maybe he had managed to get away with it before, but nothing bad happened. And maybe he met someone there or got involved in something that lured him back again. To me, maybe this is why when he was leaving KX, he was looking around, almost appearing as though he was looking for someone
Well, we don’t know what he was looking at, so no use trying to guess. But it is entirely possible he did this trip before. The only thing is, he never missed a day of school, so I don’t know when he could have done it. But there must have been days school was closed and days he may have gotten out early so there are times it could have happened. School holidays, etc. So yeah, you made a good call.
Damn you really had me with this one until i remembered the perfect attendance. I really believe he was going to meet someone, I think if there was more evidence pointing towards him making this trip previously that would really solidify that theory for me
I get the perfect attendance but what about the fact that he made this trip just after summer? He could’ve easily went during the summer
Or other holidays!
He had perfect attendance at school so unless it was at weekends then no.
I know. I was thinking school holidays, Easter, summer etc
Possibly.
Interesting point