Missing Children

Martin Allen

Tommy Brereton

Tommy was known to Islington Social Services as a ‘child at risk’. He was reported missing in August 1979 – 8 months after he was said to have disappeared. His mother said Tommy left his home in Arundel Square, Islington when she gave him to her friends Michael and Kathleen O’Hara who were to to take him to grandparents in County Cork. He never arrived there and despite an intensive hunt both in Eire and the UK no trace has ever been found of Tommy or the O’Hara’s. Police dug up the garden and pulled up floorboards at Arundel Square in their attempt to solve this mystery. More on Tommy Brereton here.

A former Islington nursery worker contacted ISN with her memories about Thomas. ‘I am just writing to say how moved I was to come across your website and to see poor Thomas Brereton listed there. I had always thought of him as a forgotten child. I worked as a nursery nurse at the day nursery Thomas attended. (This worker went on to describe Thomas). We presented evidence to the social worker all the time…. Then he disappeared and we all thought he was no longer alive. This was a Childrens Day Centre, a lovely nursery where Thomas at least was well cared for by us while he was there. I am glad he has not been forgotten by others. I have never forgotten him’

Martin Allen and Tommy Brereton were both included in an Evening Standard feature on ‘London’s missing people’ in November 1982. (below)

Desmond Ingram

Islington Gazette 30.1.92

Detectives fear nine boys dead (27.1.92) | spotlight (wordpress.com)

Detectives fear nine boys dead (27.1.92)

Times, The (London, England)-January 27, 1992
Author: Stewart Tendler, Crime Correspondent

DETECTIVES investigating the possibility of a ring of paedophiles responsible for the deaths of up to nine children have appealed for public help in tracing six boys aged between eight and 16, missing from London since the mid-1980s.

Four men have been convicted for the death of Jason Swift, aged 14, in 1985 and one man was later also convicted of murdering Barry Lewis, aged six, who vanished from south London.

Now police working on Operation Orchid, set up in 1989 to look at the activities of the gang, are trying to trace four boys who went missing between 1983 and 1986. They are Michael Monaghan, aged 16, from Hayes, who vanished in 1984; Paul James, aged 16, missing from Brixton in 1984; Michael Maughan, aged eight, from Kentish Town, missing since 1985; and Desmond Ingram, aged 14, from Highbury New Park, who also vanished in 1985. Two other boys have been described only as Mark and Hussein.