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Disappearance of Martin Allen

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Martin Duncan Allen
Born19 October 1964
Islington, London, England
Disappeared5 November 1979 (aged 15)
StatusMissing for 44 years, 11 months and 29 days
NationalityBritish
OccupationStudent (at the time of disappearance)
Parent(s)Tom and Eileen Allen (both deceased)
RelativesJeffrey Allen (brother)
Kevin Allen (brother)
Bob Allen (brother)

Martin Allen (19 October 1964 - probably before or in 1998[1]) is a British teenager who mysteriously disappeared on 5 November 1979. No trace of Allen has been found and his fate remains unknown.

Background

Martin Allen and his brothers grew up in a council flat in Hornsey, where their mother was a secretary at Tufnell Park Primary School.[2] When Martin was 12 his father gained employment as a chauffeur to the Australian High Commissioner and the whole family moved to a cottage in the grounds of the Australian High Commission in Kensington, London.[3] This was a significant change in circumstance and their new neighbours included the De Beers jewellery family.[2] Margaret Thatcher and Ted Heath were regular visitors to the street and Thatcher had a passing acquaintance with Allen's father.[2]

Martin attended the Central Foundation Grammar School in Old Street and was described as intelligent, good at French, maths and drawing.[2] Martin was a shy boy, young for his age, and not the type to run away from home.[4]

Disappearance

On 5 November 1979, Allen travelled home from school on the London Underground. His intention was to go to see his older brother, Bob, who lived near Holloway Road, but he needed to go home first in order to collect some money.[2] At around 3:50pm he said goodbye to some school friends at King's Cross station and set off in the direction of the Piccadilly line platform to travel home.[5] Initial reports state that this was the last confirmed sighting of Martin. Later reports state that Martin came home around 5pm as witnessed by his brother Kevin but went straight out again.[2] Allen failed to reach his brother Bob's home.[6] The family were not alarmed that Martin did not come home that night as they knew that if it got too late Martin would stay at his brother Bob's house.[2] The next day the family had not heard anything. At 7pm Mrs Allen rang Bob.[2] The parents phoned Martin's best friend, Robert, who told them Martin had not been at school. The parents then called the police.[2]

Initial Investigation

When he was reported missing, a large-scale police operation was launched supported by a media campaign. This failed to locate Allen. The police searched Martin's bedroom in the family cottage for 9 hours but did not find any fingerprints not even any belonging to Martin himself.[citation needed]

After a TV appeal five weeks after the disappearance[4] a male witness came forward to report seeing a man accompanying a boy acting suspiciously at Gloucester Road Tube station at 4:15pm on the day of the disappearance.[5] This was about half an hour after Martin disappeared.[7] The witness reported that the man was standing with his arm around the shoulder of a boy resembling Martin.[7] The boy appeared distressed and both parties appeared to be nervous as they got onto a Tube train.[7] The witness saw the man prod the boy in the back and overheard him tell the boy not to try to run when the pair left the train at Earl's Court station.[8] The witness described the man as 6 ft tall, in his 30s, well built, with very blonde hair and moustache and was wearing a denim jacket and trousers.[5]

The investigation to find the identity of the man was described at the time as London's biggest ever house-to-house search.[4] It included a visit to every property in Earls Court, the publication of an artist's impression[9] and the wide circulation of Identikit pictures of the man.[7] Investigators eliminated 200 possible suspects, spoke to 50,000 people and collected 600 statements during the inquiry.[9] The identity of the man was never discovered.[9]

Allen's brother Jeffrey alleged that in the early stages of the police investigation the detective responsible for the original 1979 investigation had told the Allen family that there were “high-up people involved” and that they should stop talking and “not take it further because someone will get hurt”.[10]

Subsequent events

In 1984, a book on the case by writer Anton Gill was published by Corgi Books.[11]

In 1998 it was reported that police in Liverpool, acting on an anonymous tip off, had discovered a ‘shrine’ dedicated to Martin at the home of an alleged paedophile.[6] Officers reportedly visited the house of the 62-year-old man and found a makeshift shrine including newspaper cuttings, pictures and a headstone engraved "In Memory of Martin Allen".[6] This bizarre development prompted a brief resurgence of interest in the case, but no new leads were forthcoming.[12]

In 2009, police told Kevin and Jeffrey that the files on the investigation had been destroyed in a flood.[3] In 2009 Allen's parents conceded they had no hope of seeing him alive again, believing him to have been abducted; they stated their wish simply to know what had happened and why.[8]

Martin's father, Tom, died in 2012.[2] His mother has since also died.[citation needed]

Subsequent investigations

The case was closed in the 1980s, but reopened in 2009 in light of new information.[10] The officer leading the new police investigation admitted that police were baffled by the case and that, despite a massive initial inquiry and a good response from the public, they had few leads.[8] The police interviewed serial killer Dennis Nilsen twice about Martin's disappearance. No evidence of a connection was found.[9]

In 2012, British police initiated a number of new investigations into child abuse allegations dating back over the previous 20–30 years. This included a re-investigation of claims of child abuse at the Elm Guest House. Elm House was a London guest house where it was known that exploitation and abuse of children had taken place repeatedly over a prolonged period of time during the 1970s and 1980s.[10] The location of Elm Guest House, along with the known predatory activities of the individuals involved there, have led to media speculation that Martin and another boy, eight-year-old Vishal Mehotra, could have been abducted (and later murdered) by paedophiles active at the guest house around that time.[13]

In 2015 Operation Midland officers told Kevin to “prepare for the worst” as they had “credible evidence” from a VIP gang survivor that Martin had been murdered.[14] Operation Midland interviewed Carl Beech, then known publicly under the pseudonym "Nick", who falsely claimed that he saw three boys being murdered by the paedophile network: one was run over, another strangled by a Conservative MP and the third killed in front of a government minister.[3] Beech told police that former Tory MP Harvey Proctor had been responsible for two of the murders and had been implicated in the third.[15] Proctor denied any and all allegations and did not recognise an E-FIT photograph of the boy when questioned.[15] The allegations were proved false and Beech was proved to be a fantasist.[16] Beech was convicted of crimes related to lying to police in July 2019 and was jailed for 18 years.[17]

In April 2015 it was announced by the police that some of the lost evidence had been rediscovered.[14] In May 2016 Operation Malswick superseded Operation Midland and was formed specifically to re-investigate Martin Allen's case. Police questioned Sidney Cooke, a paedophile gang leader who was jailed for life in 1985.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Shrine found to boy missing for 19 years". The Independent. 19 November 1998. Retrieved 7 July 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Butter, Susannah (14 May 2015). "Martin Allen mystery: how case of London teenager missing for 35 years". Evening Standard. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
  3. ^ a b c Keate, Georgie (26 November 2014). "Paedophile ring may have killed boy, 15". The Times. Retrieved 12 May 2017.
  4. ^ a b c "WHY THE ALLENS REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER". Daily Mirror. 3 April 1980. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  5. ^ a b c Sandell, Charles (9 December 1979). "Photofit Clue as Police Fear Lost Boy is Prisoner". News of the World. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  6. ^ a b c "New clues to missing boy's fate". BBC News. 9 November 1998. Retrieved 12 May 2017.
  7. ^ a b c d "BBC News - Parents' plea over 1979 abduction" (video). BBC News. 23 December 2009. Retrieved 12 May 2017.
  8. ^ a b c "BBC News - Parents make 1979 abduction plea". BBC News. 23 December 2009. Retrieved 12 May 2017.
  9. ^ a b c d "Parents of boy abducted 30 years ago make final appeal". The Telegraph. 23 December 2009. Retrieved 12 May 2017.
  10. ^ a b c "'Kidnapped boy may have been abused and murdered by VIP paedophile ring,' say police". The Independent. 26 November 2014. Retrieved 7 July 2016.
  11. ^ Anton Gill (1984) Martin Allen is missing, Corgi Childrens. ISBN 0552124664.
  12. ^ "Shrine found to boy missing for 19 years". The Independent. 19 November 1998. Retrieved 7 July 2016.
  13. ^ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-failings-put-dozens-of-children-at-risk-from-notorious-paedophile-ring-8518522.html "Police failings put dozens of children at risk from notorious pedophile gang", Independent, 3 March 2013.
  14. ^ a b Hale, Don (4 April 2015). "VIP paedophile murders: 'Lost' files about missing teenage boy are uncovered". mirror. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
  15. ^ a b "Detectives did not put name of boy allegedly murdered by VIP paedophile ring to only suspect". Daily Telegraph. 9 February 2016. Retrieved 7 July 2016.
  16. ^ Gillespie, James (29 April 2018). "Lord Janner's son ready to prosecute sex accuser 'Nick'". The Sunday Times. ISSN 0956-1382. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  17. ^ "Carl Beech trial: 'VIP abuse' accuser guilty of false claims". BBC News. 22 July 2019. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  18. ^ "Cops quiz child killer Sidney Cooke as they reopen case of missing boy". Daily Mirror. 21 May 2016. Retrieved 1 September 2016.
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