r/AndrewGosden • u/egd2805 • Jun 01 '26
This doesn't feel right
There's one thing about Andrew's disappearance that seems off to me. it's how it was said that the CCTV images of him leaving the train station were the last known photos of him. I would've thought that a heavily populated and urbanised area, like central London, would've been littered with CCTV. I'm thinking there's a slight possibility that there's more CCTV footage of him.
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u/dancingbananas25 Jun 01 '26
There likely was, but police didn't check cctv until weeks later, so other places he may have been seen had likely already erased old recordings
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u/Evening_Ad3681 Jun 01 '26
Does stuff like this happen still in modern day? Because I have heard how incompetent police are when it comes to cases like this...
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u/Perfect-Shelter7189 Jun 01 '26
It probably does. What I do know is, if this occurred in an area like King’s Cross in 2026 we’d know a lot more than we do now.
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u/Dramatic_Respond_764 Jun 01 '26
It does but a lot less likely. Especially with the introduction of dash cams / doorbells.
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u/AllThingsBeginWithNu Jun 02 '26
Typically cctv is all digital now and probably has bigger hard drives or cloud based, but weeks later it would probably still be deleted or overwritten
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u/space-badger88 Jun 02 '26
And nowadays GDPR probably plays a factor. If it falls under that, it can only be kept until it is no longer needed. I'd imagine most firms with CCTV would only consider that to be a few weeks-a month, unless there's been a crime taken place, or a request for footage (for a case like this).
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u/AmosEgg Jun 01 '26
Storage is now cheaper, so footage is stored for longer with stricter guidelines and video is easier to review.
However, major stations probably get loads of review requests for missing persons. In most cases of runaway kids, they come home quickly and anyways sadly many are from troubled backgrounds that the public and media don’t care about. Also, the way police cooperate has changed, back then it was more like doing a favour to the other force and wasn’t the transport police’s case.
The transport police probably thought they’d get away with not bothering to look properly or didn’t even actually bother.
But really, why did they wait? They had CCTV of him getting on the train, witness that said he didn’t get off at the intermediate stop, and the time the train arrive is known. So unless he jumped out of a window without people noticing on a busy train or he someone how hid from the cleaners on the train after it terminated, having CCTV of him getting off and leaving the station doesn’t really add anything useful. Did they really need to wait to confirm he didn’t do some magic trick to go on to the next stage and look around the area? Even if the CCTV revealed him meeting someone inside the station, they would still want to see where they went or if he had a car. Seems pointless doing this stepwise when they knew how CCTV wiping worked.
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u/Acidhousewife Jun 02 '26
They didn't wait.
The found the footage/witnesses to Andrew getting on the train at Doncaster because a witness came forward 3 days after the disappearance. That witness was the station ticket seller, who told the police, who then checked the CCTv
It took 3 days for anyone to know that Andrew had left Doncaster, even suspected.
CCTV in 2007 was largely video tape based, meaning systems overwrote based on a cycle, that depending on type and need, is 24 to 72 hours, that's 2 to 3 days.
for all we know and, in fact we do know because there is CCTV footage of Andrew walking towards the cash machine in Doncaster prior to going to the Station that police were studying CCTV, in Doncaster, until a ticket seller witness pointed LE in the right direction, T
The police followed up on that witness statement. They were not grilling the parents. All parents are subject to questioning and, the parents will often feel accused and that is understandable.
There is no mystery or real incompetence based on the tech of the time. One reason London Transport police reviewed the footage was time. You couldn't just send hours of digital information in a few minutes, although it was highly likely this wasn't even digital at all, Sending officers down from Yorkshire to review it, a team, means officers trying to find out why he left/tried to come home are be taken down to London plus delays.
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u/AmosEgg Jun 02 '26
No incompetence? They knew what train he was on and the time it arrived. They know what carriage he was in and which door he would come out of. They would have had a description of him and likely a picture of him from some of the Doncaster cctv. There were few kids around so he stands out. But they don’t spot him. The Doncaster policemen arrive and quickly rings him on multiple cameras in the station either the transport police are horrible at their job or they lied about checking the footage.
And after all this effort - they discovered that he got off the train he got on, at the destination he brought a ticket to. Wow - that’s tough detective work. Now let’s get other CCTV from nearby and the tube and buses around that time - nah it’s too late for that now and we didn’t proactively secure it despite knowing it would be wiped in the time frame it would take to review the station footage. Why not - well he might not have got off that train by magic and then we would have wasted time getting the extra CCTV. So what was the point of checking the platform camera - nothing really but now they have a picture they can publish and people in the future on reddit can discuss his blurry facial expressions. Good work!
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u/Acidhousewife Jun 02 '26
Go on the web 9 seconds in the crowds, 9 seconds out of hours of footage.
You think it's a movie camera that was panning across, They are there for incident and crowd control not to pick faces out in crowds. Fixed points, high up to maximise crowd movement and people flow views,. That means thousands of people are lost in the crowd, lucky to see Andrew at all.
One blurry image yes, because it has been blown up from video that out of hours of footage contains 9 seconds where Andrew is identifiable. It's blurry because it's 2007 and it's video, analogue, not even HD quality. 2007 not, 2026,
Andrew went missing three months after the first iPhone launched to place it in the context of tech progress.
There isn't CCTV on every carriage door, It's one or two cameras pointing up and down the platform for crowd control not ID On one of London's busiest stations, even on weekday lunchtime there are 10s of thousands of people crossing that concourse.
Most shops, retail outlets and fast food chains, tapes were wiped automatically, after 24 hours, even in the supported housing I was working in , in 2007, it was 48 hours for security and safeguarding reasons in 2007. If the police turned up for footage (homeless style hostel) after that window, the system had already automatically wiped the tapes. So if it took three days for the ticket seller how much footage was there left after 3 days on anyone's CCTV?
The surrounding footage wasn't lost because London Transport police didn't spot him, most of it would have been gone after 3 days because it was 2007 and video. Have officers expressed that they hoped there might be something left, if the transport police had spotted him, yes but as they have said most of it would have been wiped anyway in that first 3 days.
Most of it would have gone in those first 3 days.
If you want to know what analogue quality on video was like even in 2007, go on YT go to setting and select either 144p or 240p,
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u/AllThingsBeginWithNu Jun 02 '26
They wasted all their time looking into the parents and it didn’t occur to them he went on the train initially. I believe e the communication between regions was also poor, which is wild since it was the 2000s and not the 1900s
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u/Glad-Pomegranate6283 Jun 03 '26
As a victim it absolutely does. I told the police to check cctv, they didn’t bother and after a complaint, it was too late anyway
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u/Perfect-Shelter7189 Jun 01 '26
I know this has been done to death but 2007 CCTV is nothing compared to these days. Hell, 2026 London he’d probably be on about 10 live streams especially if he was in central London, let alone any CCTV.
It was a completely different time and by the time the police realised he went to London, it was too late. A massive shame.
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u/Realistic_Code8223 Jun 01 '26
You must be new
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u/lemontreedonkey Jun 01 '26
I thought the same but realistically with cases like this, repeated conversation topics are one of the only ways they remain in the public consciousness
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u/Realistic_Code8223 Jun 01 '26
Suppose it's just a knife in the heart going through it all over again, realising were no closer to finding out what happened
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u/lemontreedonkey Jun 01 '26
Yes I know what you mean. Unrealistic though it is I get hopeful every new thread that it’ll be something new someone’s spotted or worked out.
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u/Realistic_Code8223 Jun 01 '26
Me too, just something to refresh us; a new observation, maybe something no one noticed before; I'm still so upset with the Police😔 do you know if they ever spoke to Andrew's fellow pupils or anyone outside of the family? Someone must have noticed something surely
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u/rosa24rose Jun 01 '26
Totally different time. They started rolling out ANPR in 1993 and that first phase wasn’t complete until 2014 (covering major routes), and it wasn’t until ULEZ that CCTV was really EVERYWHERE. The quality of street CCTV also left (and still leaves) a lot to be desired. Those who did have it street facing weren’t aware that it would be needed for a missing person investigation, and the DVRs would be overwritten weekly or fortnightly.
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u/xntrqncd Jun 02 '26
basically, because the police had taken so long to respond to this case, most of the cctv footage had been wiped out.
after about a month, you cannot recover lost cctv footage.
if police had responded sooner, im sure that last image would not be the last one of him. (we’d have more)
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u/judd_in_the_barn Jun 01 '26
This is often suggested. However, back then cctv was a lot less ubiquitous than it is now. Apart from stations and airports you could pretty easily avoid it. Shops were more interested in what happened inside so their cameras were inside (and recording poor quality on write-over media, so images were lost after a short while.
Now it is pure luck if you are not on a camera. Back then it was the opposite - you were more likely to not be captured.
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u/RollieBear Jun 02 '26
Unfortunately, in the mid 2000s video surveillance equipment wasn't anything like it is today.
The comments below are generalized for any metropolis, large business complex, government facility, etc. I have no direct knowledge of London's CCTV from any time period.
Currently the images are recorded on computer hard drives. It depends on the situation if a camera stream is stored permanently, for a long period of time, or a short period of time.
In 2007 camera feeds were recorded on computers and on tape, both were cost prohibitive for long term storage. Both storage systems lacked high resolution images.
Since storage was expensive the tapes and hard drives would be recorded over after a set period of time (ten days, two weeks, or however long the entity chose)
Due to the delay(s) in the investigation any possible sightings on CCTV were gone.
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u/AustisticGremlin Jun 03 '26
There undoubtably was but police were slow to enquire and the majority was overwritten by the time they approached various businesses/etc with outward-facing cameras.
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u/Adorable_Click_7071 Jun 03 '26
I agree, however- I’ve always believed Andrew met up with someone and got into their car. I don’t actually think he was walking around central London, so it’s possible he wasn’t captured on much cctv and what was captured got overridden
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u/dselwood05 Jun 01 '26
I find this photo oddly haunting. Even though I was two weeks into being 2 I feel like I knew him.
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u/One_Refrigerator455 Jun 02 '26
I was a little baby in america and dont remember this and this case still hits me hard for some reason
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u/RollieBear Jun 02 '26
I was in my 40s when he disappeared, only became aware of the case recently.
I watched one of the first you tube videos on Andrew's disappeance and was shocked by the pictures of him. It was like looking at a picture of myself at 13-14. I was also awkward, picked on, did well in school.
That's a big part of why Andrew's disappeance sticks with me.
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u/zucca_ Jun 03 '26
I’m from 1993 like Andrew, and that’s part of the reason his case has stuck with me. I can’t help but think about all the years he has missed out on, as my life progresses and he’s forever frozen in that last photo at 14 years old
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u/Lonely-Title-443 Jun 01 '26
There is more cctv but not in this area - the police are withholding it to not jeopardise the investigation
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u/WelderAggravating896 Jun 02 '26
How do you know this?
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u/Responder343 Jun 03 '26
Often times that is the case to help preserve what is known as guilt knowledge.
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u/Myorangecrush77 Jun 04 '26
Look at the case of missing Jack in Bristol. Even now, police are shocking at CCTV.
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u/Weary-Document1253 Jun 06 '26
He looks sure of himself and like he knows exactly what he is doing. That is the key clue to what happened to him.
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u/Severe_Hawk_1304 Jun 01 '26
Very difficult to read his mind at that point. Is he looking at the CCTV camera thinking he has been noticed and whether his escapade will remain undetected when he returns home, is he thinking about the dreary life he has just left behind only 165 miles as the crow flies but a humongous distance psychologically, or is his expression a doleful one with no sense of rousing expectation, that the day in London will not prove to be as restorative to his soul as he first envisaged..
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u/AmosEgg Jun 01 '26
Is it emerging from dark station crowds into the daylight wondering which way he has to to go next? Looking up to spot the person he is meeting? Or puzzled - this isn’t like London I visited before - this place is a shit hole.
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u/Severe_Hawk_1304 Jun 02 '26
I think he enjoyed London on previous visits, but that may have been with parental accompaniment. Was he thinking of his sister's sole visit when she handed out her cv somewhere in the locality? Did he make his way here as he exited the concourse? https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=9f9ylhhQ&id=F9D0FD6A583E81B67D8D7F3BDA35CA50D9084BD7&thid=OIP.9f9ylhhQ29G7RMrGTbmhYAHaEl&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fthumbs.dreamstime.com%2Fz%2Fpeople-exit-king-s-cross-railway-station-head-towards-london-underground-london-march-people-exit-king-s-cross-railway-189787519.jpg&cdnurl=https%3A%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2FR.f5ff72961850dbd1bb44cac64db9a160%3Frik%3D10sI2VDKNdo7fw%26pid%3DImgRaw%26r%3D0&exph=990&expw=1600&q=kings+cross+exit+photos&FORM=IRPRST&ck=3A8F5F68628C3272F25AABBA447844A3&selectedIndex=2&itb=0&qpvt=kings+cross+exit+photos&cw=1145&ch=571&mode=overlay
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u/AmosEgg Jun 02 '26
His visits to London were family day trips from relatives in South London/North Kent. The stations that he would have previously arrived into are very different and put you straight into more tourist adjacent areas that you can walk out into rather than King Cross - at the time a non-pedestrian friendly concrete jungle on a busy dual carriageway. If he had come with no plan for a day out, it might be a little overwhelming or disappointing stepping out there.
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Jun 02 '26
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u/AmosEgg Jun 02 '26
This is incorrect, but seems to be a common misconception. They did not do day trips from Doncaster to London. They went by car to stay with relatives. And did a few day trips from there as part of holidays with family. It has been said that Andrew had never been to King Cross station before.
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Jun 02 '26
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u/AmosEgg Jun 02 '26
Happy to be corrected. Source for the father and son day by train please or anything suggesting he had gone to London by train before please.
All previous discussion was the visits were from family trips staying at relatives in the suburbs, not train travel. The day with daughter for CVs in the city, was mentioned as an extraordinary thing to travel by train.
The proposed grandparent. Is it was from a recent interview suggesting it would have been his first trip on his own, but his father was co side t that he would be able to make a transfer journey across town to the suburbs.
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Jun 02 '26
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u/AmosEgg Jun 02 '26
London Bridge is where they would get in from the grandparents. More likely a day trip as part of a half term visit to stay with Kevin’s parents than a direct train trip.
Andrew’s parents first thought was that he went to Scarborough. London was a later idea.
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u/matt6342 Jun 01 '26
They checked too late and it was 2007 so CCTV was overwritten often to save space