NEWS: Arrests made in Andrew Gosden case
Detectives investigating the 2007 disappearance of Andrew Gosden have made two arrests.
Assisted by officers from the Metropolitan Police, we detained two London men on Wednesday 8 December.
A 45-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of kidnap, human trafficking and the possession of indecent images of children, and a 38-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of kidnap and human trafficking. Both have now been released under investigation while enquiries continue.
Andrew Gosden, who would be 28 now, disappeared on 14 September 2007. The then 14-year-old boarded a train from Doncaster to London, with CCTV cameras capturing him when he arrived at Kings Cross station. That was the last known sighting of Andrew, and since then no information about his movements has been corroborated by police.
Senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector Andy Knowles said: “Our priority at this time is supporting Andrew’s family while we work through this new line of enquiry in the investigation. We are in close contact with them and they ask that their privacy is respected as our investigation continues.
“We have made numerous appeals over the years to find out where Andrew is and what happened to him when he disappeared. I would encourage anyone with any information they have not yet reported to come forward."
Pictured: Andrew before he went missing in 2007.
Before making my post, I had called my local station, and they confirmed that there was an officer with the Facebook account's name working in the same branch, so I was told to ask them for a contact number. I replied to the Facebook message doing so, and then came on here and made my post.
This afternoon, the officer replied to me on Messenger with a number, but following the advice given on my other post, I called the station again and asked them to request that he send me an email from his pnn.police.uk account.
A few hours later, I received an email from the officer's official email account giving the same contact number that was sent via Facebook. The Facebook messages were real, contrary to what everyone here believed.
I called the number and spoke with the officer, who was a very nice man and told me that the screenshots they had been sent boiled down to "online bickering", and he said it was "one of the weakest cases he had seen", but they had to contact me because that was procedure, of course.
He said that the complaint has been recorded in their database and might show up on an enhanced DBS check, but not to worry because those checks are rare for most jobs, there's nothing of serious note in the report, and I have a very common name, so it is unlikely to even be traced back to me.
All in all, I've learned a valuable lesson about protecting my identity online, my only major concern now is that I have a mentally unstable online stalker who feels wronged. I'm taking precautions to protect my online presence now, and fortunately, she lives on the other side of the world from me.
Hi. I'm using an alt for this. I know the information in this story makes me very easily identifiable, but I now know the woman in question follows my main account.
Several months ago, I submitted a post to /r/SubredditDrama about a woman in the US who stalked her professor and made a lengthy series of posts to academic subreddits about it.
She later found out about the post and said she was going to try to sue me for libel, which some other users alerted me to.
A lot of people who read my post began following her and arguing with her, mostly telling her to get offline and look for professional help. I followed these threads as I wanted to keep an eye on the situation after she claimed she would pursue legal action against me, and I told her under a different account (/u/dovahzulsabadconlang) a couple of times to stop; not more than a few times. After a while, I completely stopped commenting altogether, and just watched her account without interacting.
A couple of months later, she made another post in which people took my side WRT the SubredditDrama post, and she believed I was continuing to contact her and said she hoped I died. I made one comment in response to that - the first time I had interacted with her in a long time - and then, again, went back to not contacting her.
Today, I received a Facebook message from someone claiming to be with the Crime Support Hub for the South Yorkshire Police, which read:
>[NAME], We have received an email from a lady in Las Vegas regarding contact you have made with her via the website Reddit. An offence has been recorded on our database for Harassment. She has informed us that you have been following her on the website and sending her messages which she considers to be harassment. Do not contact her again. Further contact maybe considered as a further course of conduct and consideration will be given whether it is appropriate to take further action against you under the Harassment Act. Thank you, Sheffield Crime Support Hub, South Yorkshire Police
I phoned the local police station and they confirmed that the person who contacted me is an officer in that division who is work
... keep reading on reddit ➡Using a throwaway because this reveals my location lol.
I've often seen people dismiss the theory that Andrew was going to meet someone he'd met online due to the fact that his home and school computers were searched by the SYP. I'm in no way saying that that theory is true, but I think that it's foolish to dismiss it for that reason. I'm from Doncaster (my cousin was in his year at the same school, it makes this case so surreal to me, but anyway) and in 2015 I had my laptop taken and searched by police as I was a victim of online grooming. It took them months to figure out the IP adresses of even one of the people I'd been talking to, and they seemed to have no idea about the basics of how computers work or how you could send pictures on them or anything. So imagine what it was like 8 years prior. I don't want to slander the SYP but I personally don't believe they have the knowledge to thoroughly search a computer.
Got a speeding ticket (36 in a 30) recently, and sent back the form admitting full liability. I've since moved address, and sent a covering letter with the form notifying them of my change of address last week - not heard anything back yet, and am a bit concerned that any correspondence might go to my old address and get missed.
I tried the numbers from their website yesterday and couldn't get through on any of them - they just rang out. They also gave an email address via the automated telephone message, but I sent an email that bounced back with a delivery failure notification.
Has anyone had any success contacting them? Just want to check that they've acknowledged my change of address...
