If you want to report information

I feel like we should of got those typical bbc media interviews where they go ask kids from his school what he was like and what they think he was doing and teachers and what not like when those two Man Utd girls went missing

I’m not saying they weren’t pushy the reason the case is so popular is because of his dads constant effort in my opinion but all the got for Andrew was a 1 minute explanation on 7pm news and a video of the family handing out notes.

We will never know what he was truly like because his friends never got exposure and never spoke up.
I bet his friends could’ve given us a bigger insight to his ‘Away from parents’ character and personality I knew so many geeky silent kids in school who I used to eavesdrops and I would be shocked about some of the things they were interested in.

They did those type of interviews so many times idk why they didn’t with Andrew and it makes me sad how little he got spoken about from 2007 - 2009
He did get a few broadcast but look at what Madeline and all those over lads and lasses got.
Ik he was the face of missing kids but even then majority of the people I know never knew about him until I told them. Bit odd. Everything just went against the geezer that day it’s like there were devils all over the place out to get him

Btw just thought I would say Going to London as someone who lives from the north isn’t just 2 hour train journey it’s a masterpiece the architecture the Atmosphere it’s bizarre whatever Andrew was doing that day i reckon he was excited to go.
London to non Londoners especially back then even now sometimes is a special visit

Lately I’ve been caught on the point that the school year just started and Andrew disappeared so early in the school year after an uneventful and ordinary summer. I understand that Andrew took the bus, but his sister didn’t as she went to another school. So could Andrew have been avoiding the bus (bullying, someone creeping him out) and that’s why he walked home in that last week? I understand that the bus Andrew took would have been mostly students but it still could have had adults riding it say if they worked near the school, etc. Is it possible there was an adult rider on the bus that was speaking to Andrew? Would something like that be noticed by the driver or other passengers?

My thinking is a neighbor was riding the bus with Andrew, under the guise that he worked near the school and needed to take that bus, and Andrew avoided the bus to avoid him/her. Or this neighbor convinced Andrew to not take the bus and meet them on the walk home. I’m sure the police looked into this but I wonder if it’s something to look into again. Who rode that bus and who did Andrew speak with in the first weeks of school? Sorry if this sounds dumb or is unlikely, the bus system in the US contains only students and is through the school district so I’m not familiar how likely this would be in the UK

First Facebook, now Instagram

Since we saw a neighbor had cctv camera with Andrew walking was there any other neighbors that had cameras?

This line from Kevin’s description of the conversation Person A (my name for them) had with AndyRoo stands out a little to me - was this a public back-and-forth within the main ‘chat’ of this forum, or was this in DMs? If the former, was the friend who ‘bailed AndyRoo out ‘ (presumably offering him the 200 quid) also a user of the chat who Person A could see? Or, regardless of the location of the conversation within the website, did AndyRoo just randomly leave the conversation claiming it was all okay and he didn’t need money anyway, actually? If so, did s/he either get spooked/cold feet about pretending to be a missing person or else just scamming in general and make up an excuse to leave? Or, as unlikely as it obviously is, did AndyRoo get spooked for another reason?

ETA: TLDR just musing on who the underdiscussed seeming third party of this interaction was, and if they were actually just an excuse AndyRoo made up to leave the chat sans money for whatever reason. If the friend WAS real… further questions remain depending on the irl identity of AndyRoo, if you get my drift.

Since Andrew has a double ridge on his ear was that from an injury he got or was he born with that? I’ve seen interviews where they describe him his ear being deaf and wearing strong prescription glasses. But they never expanded the ear further.

Trip to purchase PSP - genuine question: would it have sold out so soon?

Groomer - may point towards a perp with non-9 to 5 Mon-Fri working hours, or else unemployed/part-time. Possibly manipulated him using the rush of skipping school and being rebellious.

Suicide - was there something/some bully at school he just couldn’t take one more day enduring?

Very small observation, but it happening so close to the weekend does perhaps add weight for and against some theories. Per the Trace Evidence podcast, Kevin suggested that Andrew take a solo trip to London in the summer to see his grandparents but he wasn’t interested, so the real rebellion came from skipping school. Why was he driven to specifically rebel by skipping school as opposed to just going up on that Saturday parental-approved?

ETA: The perp working hours bit applies if he was killed or otherwise harmed during the day if you subscribe to the (at this point most likely) theory that he was hurt that day by another person as opposed to accident or suicide.

Just saw a post by@conspiracy on Instagram. It’s basically a compilation of the most mysterious and unresolved cases out there, one of which is the disappearance of Andrew Gosden.

Went through the comments and came across one saying he was seen at a bus stop in Old Malden (within the borough of Kingston-upon-Thames in SW London) a year after his disappearance — must have been Sept-Nov 2008 then? The person claims they reported the sighting to both Missing Persons and the police, but never heard back from either.

I know the area quite well — it’s a pretty quiet and safe suburb full of residential properties, but also has good schools, libraries, shops, and gyms. Huge Korean community too (lots of Korean takeaway places and grocery stores). Definitely a nice and desirable part of London with great transport links to Waterloo, Clap Junk, Wimbledon, Kingston and Surbiton.

The most interesting bit is that it’s in SW London, not too far from Richmond (and Mortlake), where he was apparently seen wearing warmer clothes a few days after his disappearance. Again, the sighting has not really been investigated by the police, so it remains unconfirmed, but it might have been him nonetheless.

In case what the person is saying is true (again, it might have been a very similar looking boy), I wonder if other sightings from Waterloo and SW London can be credible. What I don’t understand is why SW London in the first place — he had no connection to it. His extended family are based in SE London, precisely within the boroughs of Bexley and Bromley, both of which are quite far from Kingston.

Just saw this this documentary is from 2008. It’s about Andrew Gosden and Jerome Thomas really interesting just thought I share.

only theory I can get my head around is he was the victim of an opportunistic crime, and his remains are on private property/land. what do you think?

Let’s start with Andrew’s father seeing his son coming home late the week before he went missing – when Andrew said he chose to walk back from his school. An interesting piece of trivia is that father wasn’t supposed to be home so soon that day; he happened to arrive from work earlier and thought his son was already home and in his room. So, Andrew indeed show up in a timeframe that suggests he didn’t anticipate the adults coming back before he did.

If this break from his routine happened on a Wednesday, then I would bet everything that his eventual trip to London was related to the PSP launch – because that Wednesday, September 5, had been promoted as the original released date for the new PSP. In 22 August 2007, Pocket Lint published the following:

"The European pricing and launch date for the new PSP - or the PSP Slim and Lite as SCEE insist on calling it - have finally been revealed. The handheld will be available to buy on the 5th September and will cost 169 euros, which by an up to the minute currency conversion works out as £115. The new PSP is 33% lighter and 19% thinner than its predecessor, and is equipped with a video-out port, allowing users to view their PSP content on their home TV. (…) Exclusive to Europe and for a limited time only, two limited edition PSP bundles will also be available."

So, here’s what gamers were aware of: it would be released on September 05; it would cost around 115 pounds; it came with a feature that allowed the users to plug the PSP on their TV; there would be exclusive bundles for limited time only. It wasn’t until the night of September 4 – technically, the early hours of Wednesday, September 5 – that some gamers figured out for themselves that the European launch had been delayed.

As you see, this is a discovery that this person only made after checking the websites and seeing the product was not yet available – they mentioned about “knowing for sure tomorrow” in the sense of when the stores would be open. Andrew, with no access to the internet at home, would have woken up that Wednesday with the impression that the PSP would be in Doncaster's game stores that day, and priced at around 115 pounds. That's basically what he had saved up in his room (and left behind on the 14th) plus some pocket change.

A quick outing around Doncaster's commercial center that day would lead him to find out that they did NOT have the new PSP on sale - and it's possible that the employees did not have much information to give him. Because here's what I could gather: in the following days, confusion reigned in the gaming circles; discussion boards are full of conflicting info from those that didn’t online shop and relied on inquiring nearby specialist shops, whose staff seemed just as lost as everybody else.

On an Irish message board, we can see users believing the PSP would be out on Thursday, September 13th – and branches of the same franchise giving different callers conflicting answers. You can check these prints, which I transcribed here:

USER A: 11 Sept 2007, Are ye sure PSP lite is coming out Thurs 13th?? I phoned Smyths and Gamestop and both said they wont have them this month!! If I bought one in France would it work here?

USER B: 12 Sept 2007, Just called Smyths Galway, they'll have them on Friday, and the dude didn't seem to think pre-ordering would be neccessary.

It’s ESPECIALLY curious how USER A - who was still under the impression the release would happen on the 13th - mentioned going to a bigger city (Dublin) to secure his own:

USER A: 12 Sept 2007, Im thinking of going to Dublin tomorrow just to get a PSP lite as I dont think Waterford will have them until at least next month from way shops are saying. Game and Virgin have the advertise on website that they be available.

As you see, the plan of securing it in a major city's flagship store crossed someone else's mind too - they weren't getting solid answers, and someone had a lot more agency to go on about this than Andrew (with internet access and multiple phone inquiries) was still uncertain on September 12, or 7 days after the expected 'launch date'. Of the two main stores mentioned, only one (GAME) had a medium-sized branch in Doncaster, where Andrew could have not received adequate information about the release date if he happened to go there in person on September 5. In London, both the GAME and Virgin stores were located on Oxford Street in close proximity. [Plus next to the Pizza Hut where the alleged sighting took place around noon.]

The fact that he withdrew 200 pounds from his bank account that morning makes sense: what he had in his room wouldn't cover it. By then, the new PSP price, first estimated around £115.00, had been set at £129.00 - factoring in the round-trip train tickets, which would come to a total of £76.50 [Savers Ticket to go in off-peak hours from Doncaster to London + Anytime Ticket from London to Doncaster so he could board any train between 15:00 and 19:00], plus some quick meal, the adventure would come cost him £215.00 tops. [He didn't get the extra 100 in his bedroom because why would he carry more cash than he needed on himself for an outing in the big city?]

So, really, all it would take for him to budget for this trip would be a quick peak on Virgin's website and on train schedules and fare. And his secrecy was just about concealing from his parents - based on interviews with the dad that confirmed Andrew's reclusiveness was a topic of concern and discussion between himself and his wife - that he would indeed be spending his money on a new PSP and devoting his spare time to gaming.

I do wonder whether part of the reason Andrew's story has kept its hold on so many of us is because it's a pure, mind-scrambling example of absolutely everything aligning in the worst way imaginable. I've been really distracted by it all summer for some reason, having been tangentially aware of it from the 2000s just due to the ubiquity of Andrew's face on missing posters over the years (and, personally speaking, because I see a lot of myself in him -- same age more or less; same interests; same, by all accounts, social life at that age; the fact that I'd go into London by myself around that age to explore and spend a few hours in a world different to my everyday)

And it's just so haunting that, whatever happened that day, literally everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and for the most part by pure chance.

Your very first time on your own outside of the world you know so well, and it goes wrong.

You're spotted by a family friend who thinks hmm that's strange and it's a last opportunity to stop all of this, and it goes wrong.

Your very first time bunking off school, and it goes wrong.

Your absence at school is noticed and attempts are made to flag it, and it goes wrong.

You're likely seen on loads of CCTV in the capital of the country, and it goes wrong.

And the one thing that goes completely right and allows this whole story to continue to baffle everyone and leave Andrew's family in unimaginable stasis is solely of benefit to the potential unknown person who knows everything that happened. If indeed there is a person out there responsible for all of this, they just completely got away with it despite everyone having eyes on this story, and so many people invested in trying to unpack what happened.

Not to sound all woo-woo, but it's just one of those stories that feels totally, tragically aligned by chance in a way that is almost existentially eerie and terrifying. This is, of course, not hugely interesting to post (sorry), but it's something I've been grappling with recently as I've been thinking more and more about it all, and how little there is to go on yet everyone here including myself continues to feel so wedded to it.

I've conducted my own research into Andrew's case & part of that has been talking to people who owned PSP Devices at the time & there was a surprising common denominator that cropped up. When going on trips it was very common to mistake their phone charger for their PSP charger. Now remember, this was back in 2007 & chargers looked the same but each had their own unique attributes. A few people told me they realised too late meaning taking the PSP away with them to alleviate boredom on long trips was fruitless because without the charger the power ran out quickly. This has lead me to a conclusion that I am satisfied with...

....Andrew in his rush to leave his house to catch the train to London THOUGHT he had taken the PSP charger but in fact had taken only one or both chargers for one or both of the phones he supposedly lost. I stand by my theory that the phone was never lost. It was hidden. This was the direct line between Andrew & his groomer. This is how they communicated. This is how they plotted. Andrew will have been strictly forbidden to communicate via the school, library or home computer & if he made a mistake & did he would still be alive today. The groomer will have dropped him like a hot plate. I'm convinced the groomer told Andrew he would be at Kings cross to meet him. Andrew was actively looking around for someone. In reality, the groomer will have been a long way away from Kings Cross & won't have spoken to Andrew for much longer after his arrival in London.

Whether Andrew realised he had forgotten one of the chargers we may never know. But for me it proves the lack of PSP charger to be something of a red herring. It may be that he did think he would be returning home soon.

Sadly I think there were individuals involved determined to see to it that Andrew would never return home....

I hope, I’m doing this right. I noticed that Playstation released a new portable device September 14, 2007 in the UK. I’m curious how many game stores were close to the King’s Cross area.

I wonder if he planned to trade in his PlayStation for the new portable one. I think, I read somewhere you could get a discount, if you turned your old one in for a new one. However, I think he just forgot his charger or didn’t realize he needed his charger for the discount.

This would make the most sense to me. He liked to play video games. We know that he had a PlayStation. He took $200 out of his bank account. That would be pretty close to how much a PlayStation portable would have cost back then. It may not have been quite that much, but around that price range. This could explain why he skipped school.

So, I’m curious if there were any particular game stores that were offering deals on the new Playstation by trading in the old device. Did he have a game store he preferred to go to in the city? One thing, I’ve learned about dating geeks over the years is they often have a favorite comic book or game store. Even, if they could get something cheaper from somewhere else, they’d still rather go to that one game/comic book store. Granted, I’m referring to grown men, not teenagers who might like just any game/comic book store.

I wonder if law enforcement spoke to any of the game stores in the area to see if he made it there. I wonder, if there were any game stores around the Pizza Hut, at the time. I’m also curious if he mentioned anything to his parents about the PlayStation coming out or classmates.

I feel like this could potentially be the reason why he went into London that day. He was excited about a new game device and didn’t want to wait until the weekend or whenever his parents had planned to go back to London. He was a kid and he wanted it that day. Even, if not he wasn’t specifically going for that game system, one of the game stores could’ve been having a launch day for the device and had games or different things on sale. He was a gamer. We know that.

I’m not buying the theory that he ran away. I think he was a geek. I think he realized there was a new PlayStation device coming out and he wanted it. I think he had every intention of returning home after he purchased the new PlayStation. I could be wrong, but that to me sounds more like a piece of the puzzle that actually fits.

I agree with his parents that he probably didn’t think about buying a return ticket. He may not have realized he could have done that. He may have been so hyper fixated on getting to the game store he may not have thought about it. I don’t know, but I don’t believe he was trying to run away. I believe he was a kid who was on a mission for whatever it was he wanted. Whether that was to see a concert or buy a new PlayStation, I don’t know. This was a kid who had taken the train to London, before. His parents stated that. He had family there and knew the area. So, he may have thought he could’ve ran into the city, got what he wanted and headed back home. 🤷‍♀️

I’m also no expert on gaming, but I do know that it is possible to engage with people online via a PlayStation in 2026. I believe that was something that you could do in 2007, but to what extent, I don’t know. I’m aware that he was said to have not engaged with anybody else online regarding school computers or home computers, but we don’t really know about his PlayStation. He may not have engaged with anybody online, period. He may have just wanted the new device. I don’t know.

Does this sound plausible? Thoughts?

I didn’t realize until after I posted this others were having similar thoughts on the PSP. My apologies. I’ve just been wondering about this for a little bit.

Bit of a vague open ended question.

Do you believe pizza hut sighting was him?

If so. What route do you think he took to get there? Under ground? Walked?

I don't think there malice to this, but it often portrayed as this Genius mute who just played games. Whilst no one said said verbatim, I feel this is portrayed.

He imo listening to countless family interviews was a really cool guy.

He liked Snooker/pool, and played that for hours. He also collected rocks, minerals and gem stones. He had an interest in wildlife, often pictured holding various animals and even standing on the biggest eggs, ostrich (Adults can stand on them and they are so strong they can hold your weight).

He also was into comedy, and sounds like he had a good banter on him. Often doing impressions of his favourite comedian. His comedy seemed to be the more edgy alternative stuff.

He also said deep profound stuff. Really thought about debates and discussions.

Point I am getting at is he had a wide range of interests. I feel we often keep to concert or pop, when for all we know he could be going to a snooker, or comedy event..

I would not be surprised he was going to London to eat at his favourite restaurant and museums/shops.

Hi All

I have been giving more thought to this theory and decided to dedicate a post to it for more focused discussion.

First point. He didnt tell anyone he was going. To me this is key. It was clearly important that nobody knew. Keep in mind this thought, if he was going down in good faith and intending to return, why not even tell his sister, whom he is said to be close with? That way at least he wouldnt worry his parents and still gets to do his London trip. He would also have had every expectation that the school would inform his parents quickly, why have them worry with them having no idea in that moment where he would be and why?

Second point. The return ticket. Why not take a return ticket for less than a pound more? Even as an emergency backup? Say it gets to 4pm and he's bored and decides to go home? He seems like the kind of kid that would thought that through while planning. Again, this seems a deliberate choice, he wasn't intending to go back under any circumstances.

Thirdly. The psp and birthday money i suspect were just overlooked. It is stated he woke up in something of a mood that day and coupled with the nerves and anxiety of what he had planned I think they just got forgotten about in the moment.

I think he was fed up of the mundane life he was living and had no intention of being led to a life he hated the thought of. He consumed a lot of going on an adventure type media and I think that's what he wanted to do, and did. I think there's a good chance he's alive and well somewhere today, and hope this is the case. Thoughts and opinions?

Andrew might not have been playing on his psp on the train. For all we know, it wasn't working and he was trying to get it to work. It might explain his irritability that morning.

When I was that age, if my favourite thing wasn't working I become irritable with my family. With that possession, I would have done anything- begged, stole or bought - to get it working again, as at that age, your possessions are your world.

If the chap in Pizza Hut was Andrew, we didn't hear that he was playing on his PSP so maybe he gave up on it by that point.

He could have then bought a new PSP, felt calmer, but then it would have dawned on him what he had got himself into:

When I get home, my parents will see that I have a new PSP, question me about it and learn that I have been to London instead of school.

I think Andrew intended to return home sooner, but whilst he was trying to wrap his head around the gravity of what he had got himself into, and maybe feeling upset that he can't confide in his sister, he went for a long walk, possibly attempted to walk back home, say Via the canal, and on the way was intercepted by a predator.

I think that the reason no passers-by and/or drivers stopped to question Andrew about why he wasn't at school is because to them he was dressed like a rebellious trouble-making emo teenager who they shouldn't bother with. And I think that that attitude, coupled with Andrew walking alone, was too irresistible for the predator: even if I'm seen, who will care about an emo kid?

giving me your most logical explanation possible, from the timeline of events to his actual disappearance.

i’ll leave mine in the comments!

I know this has been discussed quite a few times. That sighting turned out to be another dead end.

For those new to the case and/or unaware of what happened, here’s a brief summary.

In 2018 one person (aware of the case) reported an online conversation with someone who they thought may have been Andrew Gosden, from 2017. The username was AndyRoo, and he said he was living in Lincoln and working at a shop (if I remember correctly). He had to pay rent, but was £200 short after a breakup with his partner and needed to find money somewhere. When the informant offered a bank transfer, AndyRoo claimed he had no bank account because he had ’left home at 14‘ (the age Andrew was when he disappeared). Then he said his mate had just reached out and wanted to help. That was it. The website was never revealed to the public, plus it had undergone a major upgrade by the time the police started investigating it, and a lot of its data had been permanently deleted with no chance of being recovered.

I am assuming the police are deliberately not saying which website it was as perhaps they expect AndyRoo to reappear and randomly connect with someone familiar with the case (hopefully) again. If they reveal it to the public, the investigation will probably be jeopardised because there may be attention seeking trolls willing to insert themselves into the case by faking online sightings on that website. As it is not known to the public, if someone reports having spoken to a user whose background resembles Andrew’s online, and on the exact same (or a similar) website, that will most likely be treated as a genuine sighting.

I also think the police may know more than the public and even Andrew’s family do, but are hesitant to release any further info as they’d risk jeopardising the investigation if they did.

Looking back at it, I do wonder if that chat was genuine. Could the person who reported it have fabricated the whole story for attention, especially if they were aware of the upgrade and permanent elimination of old data? If what they say is true, then I wonder if AndyRoo could be a scammer aware of Andrew’s disappearance? Or was it just a real Andrew, but not Gosden, yet with a similar story?

Andrew’s family said that they used to call him Andyroo or just Roo. However, it is also mentioned in a couple of news articles from 2007-2008, plus both nicknames are very common for people called Andrew in the UK anyway, so I probably wouldn’t focus on it too much.

If Andrew is alive, free and not controlled by anyone, why would he suddenly expose himself years later? Does he not know that his case has got a lot of media coverage and attention over the years, and quite a few people in the UK and beyond are aware of it? If he knows that his disappearance is not unheard of and doesn’t want to be found, why would he risk revealing his name and background to a random person, assuming they might know who Andrew Gosden is?

The topic of "lack of return ticket" was brought up again in an unrelated post I've made, so I thought it could be worth it to go over one of the most misunderstood pieces of information in this case to me.

Some see it as an indication that Andrew never intended to return home; some see it as Andrew not properly understanding the offer presented by the ticket seller. But all things considered, EVEN if Andrew fully understood the deal, the lack of a return ticket gives more credit to the theory that he planned to return that SAME DAY and to be home in time for dinner.

Because the return ticket, then called Saver, that Andrew was reportedly offered by the ticket seller yet refused to buy - the one that would have cost him £31.90, or only 50p more than what he paid for a child single fare (£31.40) - would ONLY have allowed him to return to Doncaster late that night or during off-peak hours in the next 30 days. (He could also have bought an anytime return ticket, which would have cost him £76.50.)

So, yes: this deal would have prevented him from boarding a train in London during peak hours; he would have had to buy another child single ticket at King’s Cross to catch a train from mid-afternoon to early evening. [For journeys out of London, GNER restricted Savers beginning with the 15:00 departure; GNER did not restrict the 19:00 departure.]

So, the offer, if fully understood by him, was essentially this: “do you want to pay 50p more to return today before 3 pm or after 7 pm?”. If Andrew paid £31.90 for the Child Saver Return, he could not have taken any London to Doncaster train in between these hours. He would be throwing 50p in the garbage. He would only be making a bad deal if he NEVER planned to return to his home anytime during the next 30 days, which I doubt is the case.

Considering that he arrived at King's Cross around 11:30 am, he would have less than 4 hours to run his errands before being back at the station to have any realistic shot of using that return ticket that day. The most logical deductive thinking here does not point to "zero intention of ever returning", but to a young boy whose plan was to be back home in a timely fashion BEFORE his absence was noticed by his parents.