Hi I'm new to this case and the website so please be kind!
I have to say this case rang alarm bells for me the other day when I saw the rap sheet on the BBC website.
The last couple of years I have been really interested in grooming gangs cases and have read loads of books on the subject, getting to know the modus operandi of these gangs.
One book in particular (and I can't now think which it was but it might have been one about Oxford) included a chapter on how the author, a girl, who had been groomed and absued for years by a network of paedophiles, was encouraged to take the train to London. There she was met by a close associate of the Oxford(?) network and taken to be abused by different men in the capital. These men differed in race from the original network, who I think were mostly Pakistani heritage, and were mostly Middle Eastern and Mediterranean. She would take the train to London in this way quite regularly from what I remember.
This story immediately came into my mind when I heard about Andrew the other day. Children abused by these gangs are not always in care, transient or troublemakers, or whatever sterotype one may have. Plenty have been from lovely, caring, middle class homes. Their only common identifying factor is that they have something 'vulnerable' about them. Andrew, to me, strikes me as someone who would be seen as vulnerable. He was extra clever, he has an extremely sensitive face, he wore clothes that marked him out as 'different' from his peers.
I'm interested if anyone knows: was he known to visit takeaways in Doncaster? Even very infrequently? Can anyone dig up what takeaways there were on that four mile walk home from school? It really strikes me that he didn't take the bus home those couple of days. Either he was avoiding something (ie. bullies) or he was walking that way to visit somewhere or someone. Maybe both?
It also strikes me that he had just passed the summer holidays with all those free days he could have gone to London for the day. A hallmark of the grooming gangs is that they love to encourage the kids to skip school - their aim is to separate them from everything that anchors them to a stable life like school and family.
Is it possible that Andrew had contact with someone in the grooming gang network who then passed his details on to these men in London. The age of the London men fits, 23 and 30 at time of crime I think? That's very typical, and then the wider network would typically include older men.
Another theory that came to me is a catfish scenario, where Andrew believed he was going to meet a young person. It must have been something with a big emotional hold over him to make him do something so out of character.
In either or these scenarios, grooming gang or catfish, I think those men knew not to meet him in the train station where there are cameras and loads of people. They knew to get him somewhere out of the public eye.
(All above is pure speculation and not based on anything factual.)