Missing Children

Martin Duncan Allen 1964-1979

Martin Allen and his brothers grew up in Hornsey, and later moved to Kensington after their father gained employment as a chauffeur with the Australian High Commission. 15 year old Martin was last seen at Kings Cross underground station on 5th November 1979. He was going to spend the evening with his elder brother and his wife in Holloway, Islington.

Anton Gill wrote ‘Martin Allen is Missing – what happened?’ in 1984. The book is a comprehensive study of the case from the point of view of the family, the police and others involved.

Danczuk and Smith wrote about Martin Allen. They cited the Henriques Report (2016) which reviewed the police handling of the allegations of historical sexual offences involving people of high prominence. Three police officers, involved in the investigations, criticised in the Henriques report spoke of Martin Allen, ‘Martin Allen’s father worked at the Australian High Commission as a chauffeur. The Embassy had retained flats at Dolphin Square. Martin Allen used to wash cars at Dolphin Square. Martin had been found by police in May 1979 frequenting Piccadilly Circus, a location poplar with rent boys. Officers had spoken to chauffeurs at Dolphin Square and received anecdotal evidence of collecting clients in company with young boys and in one case a description of pool parties involving young boys at Dolphin Square’. (Simon Danczuk and Daniel Smith (2022) Scandal at Dolphin Square A Notorious History p 256).

Sir Richard Henriques (2016) An independent review of the Metropolitan Police Service’s handling of non-recent sexual offence investigations alleged against persons of public prominence.

Articles 1979-82

11.11.79. News of the World

09.11.79 The Guardian

09.12.79. News of the World

27.12.81. Sunday Express

07.03.82. Sunday Express

10.08.82. Daily Express

2009: Parents make 1979 abduction plea

No trace of Martin Allen has been found since November 1979. The parents of a teenager abducted from London 30 years ago have made a new appeal for information about his fate. Martin Allen, 15, was last seen at King’s Cross Tube station making his way home from school in November 1979. A witness saw a man with his arm around a boy who resembled Martin at a nearby Tube station later that day but no trace of the teenager was ever found. His mother Eileen Allen, 81, said: “We just want to know what happened so we can have some final closure.” ‘Don’t try to run’ Mrs Allen and her husband Tom, 85, from Bordon, Hampshire, admit they have lost hope of seeing their son again. They said they fear they may die before his body is discovered. Mr Allen said he still “breaks down” in tears on the anniversary of his son’s disappearance, on his birthday and when he hears music that Martin loved. Mrs Allen said: “My biggest wish is to have a meeting of the family and a remembrance service, not a funeral, but a service so we can put our memories away.” The teenager went missing as he travelled home from school to pick up some money to take to his older brother Bob in Holloway on 5 November 1979. Eileen and Tom Allen fear they may die before their son’s body is discovered Martin left a friend at a foot tunnel leading onto the southbound Piccadilly line platform at King’s Cross station at about 1550 GMT. This was the last definite sighting of him. After a TV appeal later that year a Tube passenger said he saw a man and a boy acting suspiciously at Gloucester Road Tube station about half an hour after Martin disappeared. The man was standing with his arm around the boy, who resembled Martin, and both appeared nervous as they got onto a Tube train. As the pair left the train at Earls Court station the man said to the boy: “Don’t try to run.” Police continue to investigate Martin’s disappearance following a review in 2006 but they admit they have no new leads. They have also been unable to find any of Martin’s possessions, which included his school books, lunchbox and part of a model railway. Mr Allen said his son would have contacted them if he was alive because he would not have wanted his parents to worry. He said: “There must be someone out there who knows a tiny little bit but has never said anything. “They could be the answer we are looking for to help our family come to a bit of rest instead of always saying, ‘I wonder what did happen?'” Parents plea for information about their missing son

13.04.2012. ‘Thirty years on, we still don’t know who abducted our son’. Evening Standard

 

13 April 2012

The elderly parents of a teenage boy abducted 30 years ago have issued a final appeal for information about his fate.

Martin Allen, 15, the son of the Australian High Commissioner’s chauffeur in London, vanished on his way home from school on Guy Fawkes Night in 1979.

A witness later reported seeing a man apparently holding a boy of Martin’s description against his will on the London Underground on the night he vanished.

A series of Scotland Yard inquiries have failed to find any trace of him, despite a series of searches at homes of suspects as far north as Liverpool and Manchester.

Speaking today, Tom and Eileen Allen, of Bordon, Hampshire, admitted they have lost hope of seeing him again and fear they may die before his body is discovered. Mrs Allen, 81, said: “We just want to know what happened so we can have some final closure. But of course it will never go out of our minds. My biggest wish is to have a meeting of the family and a remembrance service, not a funeral, but a service so we can put our memories away. We just want to know what happened. Somebody must know something. Please tell us so we can move on.”

Mr Allen, 85, revealed he still cries on the day his son disappeared, his birthdays and when he hears music he loved. He said: “I just break down. I go out into the woods and I simply burst. After that I am all right. I cannot help it. I had hope until the beginning of this year. I still had lots of hope but suddenly it disappeared. I do not know why.”

The Yard reviewed the case in 2006 but admit they have no new leads.

Martin, a pupil at the Central Foundation School in the City of London, had intended to stay the night with his brother in Holloway but was returning home to pick up some money. His family lived in a cottage in the grounds of the Australian High Commission in Hyde Park Gate, Kensington.

When he failed to appear his family raised the alarm but there was no trace of him. Later a Tube passenger came forward to say he had seen a man and a boy acting suspiciously at Gloucester Road Tube station.

The man, described as 6ft tall, in his 30s, with blond hair and a moustache, had his arm around a boy who looked like Martin and both appeared nervous. The man was heard to say: “Don’t try to run.” They travelled to Earl’s Court where they got off.

Despite a huge operation, including a visit to every property in Earls Court, 50,000 interviews and 600 statements, police have not been able to trace the man. Anyone with information should call the incident room at Hendon on 0208 358 0100 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Articles 2009-2015

04.04.15. VIP paedophile murders: ‘Lost’ files on teenage boy’s disappearance are uncovered‘. Daily Mirror

Papers that could hold vital clues into the disappearance of Martin Allen, 15, were said to have been destroyed buy his family have now been given new hope

Disappeared: Martin Allen was 15 when he vanished in 1979

Papers that could hold vital clues into the disappearance of young Martin Allen have been discovered by murder police investigating the VIP paedophile ring.

The files on the 15-year-old, who vanished in 1979, were in a Scotland Yard archive.

They were said to have been lost or destroyed but now Martin’s family have fresh hope of answers.

His older brother Kevin, 52, received a note this week from a detective he had known in homicide, admitting they have finally uncovered the files.

Kevin said: “They can’t be the original ones, as police told me they were lost in a flood at Kensington police station.

“I assume these files are the ones they said relate to a Detective Chief Inspector, who allegedly took them to Spain around the 1990s.”

Slightly-built Martin vanished on Bonfire Night after leaving a friend at King’s Cross station in Central London.

Late last year Operation Midland officers told Kevin to “prepare for the worst” as they had “credible evidence” from a VIP gang survivor.

They believe Martin is one of three boys allegedly killed by the gang associated with politicians at Dolphin Square, Elm Guest House and an address in Kensington.

Kevin said: “I told them I knew Martin was dead.

“I have had a gut feeling for years. I believe the people who took Martin, took him to order.

“He only looked about 12 and appeared the perfect schoolboy.”

14.03.15. Australian secret service report could hold clues to disappearance of suspected VIP paedophile murder victim. Daily Mirror

Martin Allen, 15, who vanished in 1979, was the son of the Australian High ­Commissioner’s top chauffeur Tom Allen

Disappeared: Martin Allen, 15, is feared to be one of three boys murdered by the establishment paedophile ring

An Australian secret service report may hold clues to the disappearance of a ­teenager linked to their London ­Embassy.

The boy is believed to have been murdered more than 35 years ago by a VIP paedophile ring linked to politicians and prominent people.

Martin Allen, 15, was the son of the Australian High ­Commissioner’s top chauffeur Tom Allen.

He vanished on Bonfire Night 1979, en route to visit his brother Bob.

A possible last sighting of him was reported by a ­witness at Gloucester Road ­Tube station.

The Embassy put up a £100,000 reward for information at the time and Australian investigators are believed to have probed regular use of sub-contracted casual and “rogue” chauffeurs who worked for or visited the Commissioner’s residence at Stoke Lodge in Kensington, West London.

Evidence collated by Martin’s elder brother Kevin and information froma survivor called ‘Nick’, has led the Met to suppose he was probably one of three youngsters murdered by an establishment paedophile ring.

Martin lived with his family in the caretaker’s cottage within the elegant grounds of the Commissioner’s residence.

It was visited at that time by a host of prominent officials.

As teenagers, Martin and Kevin helped clean cars at Canberra House, near the Australia House Embassy on the Strand.

His appearance may have been noted by visiting chauffeurs.

Now aged 52, Kevin has ­campaigned for decades to try to find out what really happened to his younger brother and remains highly critical of ­ongoing police inquiries.

He said, “We keep going around in circles. I am fed up with being left to fester for years.”

14.05.15. Martin Allen mystery: how case of London teenager missing for 35 years could be linked to the Elm Guest House paedophile ring. Evening Standard

The mystery of London teenager Martin Allen, missing for 35 years, could now be linked to the Elm House paedophile ring. His brother Kevin tells Susannah Butter about this new twist in the tale

Updated: 11:23, 14 May 2015

Kevin Allen was at work when he received a phone call from a stranger asking him what he knew about Elm House. The man, a newspaper reporter, proceeded to give an account of the paedophile ring of powerful men allegedly operating out of the Barnes guesthouse, and suggested links between them and the disappearance of Allen’s brother, Martin, 35 years ago.

“As far as I had known my brother had been lost in the black hole of Earl’s Court station since he was 15 and his body has never been found,” says Allen, aged 51, of his younger brother, who he describes as “my shadow”. “But a boy of 15 cannot vanish into thin air and be missing for 35 years.”

After that call last November, Allen discovered that a man known only as Nick had come forward with information about Martin to the police. According to Nick, Martin was abducted by a paedophile ring operated by a group including politicians, business people and a royal connection. The police are investigating whether Martin was one of three boys said to have been killed by that group in the late Seventies and early Eighties. One is claimed to have been strangled, another murdered at an orgy and a third hit by a car.

Allen, who works as a camera technician, has kept his discoveries from his mother, who is 86 and has Alzheimer’s. “She had previously said that she knew that Martin was dead but she would like confirmation, to be able to close the door and know what happened. But with everything that came out we decided she wouldn’t want to know. I couldn’t bear to know that about my own child.”

The brothers grew up in a council flat in Hornsey, where their mother was a secretary at Tufnell Park Primary School. They spent weekends ice skating at Alexandra Palace. When Allen was 14 and Martin 12, their father started working as chauffeur to the Australian High Commissioner and they moved to Kensington, where neighbours included Winston Churchill and the De Beers jewellery family. Margaret Thatcher and Ted Heath were regular visitors to the street. “It was quite a change from our council flat,” says Allen. “There were garden parties over the fence from us; Thatcher knew my Dad to say hello to.”

The longest journey Martin would take was on the Tube to the Central Foundation Grammar School in Old Street. “Martin was a clever kid,” says Allen. “He was good at French, loved maths and drawing. He always had a pen in his hand drawing cars. I still have a couple of his old exercise books upstairs.”

On November 5, 1979, Allen was at home making dinner after a day’s work as a goldsmith’s apprentice. Martin came home around 5pm but went straight out again to see their brother, Bob, who lived near Holloway Road, with a bag of baby clothes their mother had knitted for Bob’s son. “He came home to collect a pound, of all things, to take to my sister-in-law. He had bought a red LED digital watch from her catalogue company.”

He never came home. “We thought nothing of it that night because we knew if it got to a certain time he would stay at Bob’s. The next day we hadn’t heard anything from him so at 7pm my mum rang Bob. He thought Martin had gone home because it was fireworks night and he might have been going to Battersea Park with me.”

They phoned Martin’s best friend, Robert, who told them Martin had not been at school. “My parents called the police. My brother and I got in the car — what do you do? Where do you drive? We went to

 King’s Cross, where there was lots of child prostitution.”

An artist’s impression of Martin Allen released by the police at the time Over the next few days “we sat at home constantly watching the news, hoping that a kid had been found; waiting for the telephone to ring — but it never did”.

The Australian High Commissioner offered a reward for any information but no one came forward, not even “cranks” just trying to get the money, which Allen says is rare.

Allen wonders if he deliberately blocked out any references to paedophilia. He remembers a moment when an inspector came to the house. “He was suave with just the right amount of cuff sticking out of his silver suit. My mum, dad and I sat at our Sunday lunch table and I said I thought Martin had been taken by some high-up people. I don’t know why I said it. I thought, ‘This isn’t normal, it doesn’t happen to us’. The detective said to me, ‘If you keep saying things like that you will be hurt’.”

The police had originally treated Martin’s disappearance as an isolated incident on the London Underground but Allen believes there is another story. “There is an interwoven spider’s web. The people who did it all knew each other, went to the same places, used the cars. I would like them to be arrested.”

He says that the Australian High Commission used a chauffeur firm that had employed the notorious Sidney Cooke, who has been convicted for molesting children. Jimmy Savile’s chauffeur, David Smith, who last year committed suicide before standing trial on sex charges is also believed to have connections to the company. Police say “no update will be made available relating to this case at this time”.

Allen says Martin, “who always had his nose in a book”, and he “felt protective towards” could have been spotted by one of the drivers when they were working their Saturday job washing the High Commissioner’s cars or skating past on a trip to Ladbroke Grove.

The police phoned him after the Daily Telegraph ran a story about Nick’s account last November. “They said, ‘Your brother is 80 per cent one of the three kids who were murdered’, and I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ I didn’t hear anything else from them for 70 days then we had a meeting. Paul, who was the baby Martin was going to visit and is now in his thirties, came along. Still nothing has happened. The police are never going to get victims or survivors to come forward — these people have no belief in the police or respect for them.”

Allen says the case has wider implications. “Yes, it’s historic but these people were running the country.”

Martin’s brother Kevin today At the embassy, Martin’s room remained the same. Allen’s father died three years ago, without knowing what happened to his son. “My dad being ex-military, he did everything privately. I don’t know whether he went into the garage, shut the door and bawled his eyes out. My mum didn’t show emotion well. I don’t think any of us broke down until later on. If something came on the television mum and dad would say, Martin would have liked that, if it was about skateboarding or something.”

When his father died Allen found that he had kept cuttings from when Martin went missing as well as whenever another child disappeared or was involved with paedophiles.

The family’s last appeal for information was in 2005. “We applied for a death certificate and it was denied by the coroner on the grounds that they need a body.”

Allen says he “went off the rails” between the ages of 19 and 25. “I drank a lot, it was the rave generation — I took various illegal substances, cocaine and speed. I feel like I’ve had my late teens stolen from me. I thought of Martin a lot. Every time I was out clubbing I’d think Martin would love to be there. I still do. On holiday I think if he had a family with kids they would be running on the beach; building sandcastles with my kids.”

Allen has two children, Seth , 13, and Ruby, 10. They know that they had an uncle who was abducted. “I say I don’t worry more because of Martin but obviously I do. I don’t let them walk home alone or add anyone they haven’t met on Facebook. If they were abducted it would be a big coincidence for it not to have anything to do with what happened to Martin.”

Every year, between October 19, Martin’s birthday, and the day he went missing, Allen says “I am not myself”.  Bonfire Night is difficult. “I’ve only been to two fireworks displays in the past 30 years, even with my own kids. I can’t do it.”

He still has the posters from when his brother went missing and says, “I’ve often seen kids in parks who look similar to Martin but I’ve never approached them. I’ve known for 33 years that Martin wasn’t ever going to come back. I just want the people who were responsible to be brought to justice.”

26.11.14.’Kidnapped boy may have been abused and murdered by VIP paedophile ring‘ say police. Independent

Martin Allen went missing aged 15 while on his way home in 1979

The family of a missing boy have been told by police that he may have been abducted, abused and murdered by a paedophile ring of leading establishment figures.

Martin Allen, the son of the chauffeur of a Australian high commissioner, went missing aged 15 from King’s Cross on his way to home in Kensington in November 1979.

His brother Kevin, 51, has said he was called by Detective Chief Inspector Diane Tudway of the Metropolitan Police on Friday, who told him she was investigating whether Martin’s disappearance is linked to an alleged ring made up of MPs and senior figures of authority.

Operation Midland, the investigation into the deaths, was set up this month and officers said that Operation Fairbank intelligence has led them to look into whether high-profile officials were involved in organised child sex abuse and murder in the 1970s and 1980s at locations including the Elm Guest House in Barnes, southwest London.

A man only known as Nick, who is in his 40s, claims he was raped by a former Conservative MP and alleges that he saw three boys being murdered. He said one was deliberately run over, a second was strangled by a Conservative MP and the third was killed in front of a government minister. All of the boys were aged between 10 and 14, Nick said.

He had said: “We were asked if we wanted a drink. It was always whisky. Both MPs were brutal. I was raped over a bath-tub while my head was beneath the water.”

The case of Martin Allen’s disappearance was closed in the 1980s, but reopened in 2009 and shut again last year. Mr Allen and his brother, Jeffrey, 61, said that police claimed in 2009 that files has been destroyed by a flood.

“We had to give evidence over again to the police,” Mr Allen said. “But then later, when the case was still open, the two detectives on it told us that a retired police officer had withdrawn the files and gone to Spain.

“They said they had tried to get a warrant to question the officer but couldn’t get it from the Spanish authorities. You don’t know what to believe.”

Jeffrey Allen said the detective who led the case in 1979 had told his family that there were “high-up people involved” and that they should stop talking and “not take it further because someone will get hurt”.

Kevin Allen told the Mirror: “I’ve no faith in the police. They failed us.

“Within a couple of months of Martin disappearing, my ­father and I said, ‘There’s something not right here.’ Police weren’t doing enough. They went through the motions.

“So it didn’t surprise me when a senior officer warned me I could get hurt. I’ve always said there was something, Establishment involvement, in Martin’s disappearance.”

The Met said it could not comment on the allegations.

Last week Vishambar Mehrotra, an ex-magistrate and father of Vishal, eight, who was murdered in 1981, said he was called by a male prostitute who claimed that the boy had been taken to the guest house to be abused.

Mr Mehrotra said he had given police a tape recording of the phone call soon after the conversation in 1981 but officers refused to investigate.

18.12.14. ‘Man believes ‘VIP sex ring’ abducted his missing brother’. ITV NEWS

The brother of a 15-year-old who went missing in the late 1970s has told ITV News he is “convinced” the teenager was among the victims abused by members of an alleged historic Westminster paedophile ring.

Detectives have not linked Martin Allen – who disappeared from his home in London in 1979 – to their investigation into claims of abuse at a block of flats near the Houses of Parliament that housed many MPs.

However his brother Kevin Allen told ITV News he believes Martin was “abducted by higher powers” and alleges there has been “a massive cover-up for all these years”. Play video

His claims came as detectives announced they are investigating the murders of three young boys as part of their Operation Midland investigation into the alleged paedophile ring at Dolphin Square flats in Pimlico.

Scotland Yard has appealed for witnesses to come forward.

The Metropolitan Police’s Det Supt Kenny McDonald said a victim calling himself “Nick” is so far the only victim to contact police and has described abuse that was “pre-arranged, pre-meditated and horrific”.

Further articles:

23.11.14. Westminster paedophile ring: Cop warned brother of Missing Martin Allen questions would get him ‘hurt’. Mirror

24.11.14. Missing boys brother clams he was threatened by police when he told them he believed they covered up disappearance. Daily Mail

27.11.14. Martin Allen’s disappearance may be linked to VIP paedophile ring that allegedly killed and raped boys. World News

19.12.14. Alleged victim of VIP paedophile ring Martin Allen lived on grounds of Australian High Commission in London. Sydney Herald. Australia

30.05.2015. Paedophile Sidney Cooke’s potential links to murder of boy 8 ignored by police. Mirror

07.06.2014: True Crime DIVA. Martin Allen: Vanished without a trace in 1979 (no longer online)

Wikipedia: Disappearance of Martin Allen

December 2009. Martin Allen – London 1979. UK and Ireland database for all crimes against children ( no longer online)

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.

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’

1984: Exerpt from ‘Martin Allen is Missing‘ by A Gill. London. Corgi Books. p250.

November 1982 Evening Standard paragraph from article below on Tommy Brereton as a missing child.

‘One of the youngest missing persons on police records is 4 year old Tommy Brereton. That is how old he was when he disappeared from his North London home in January 1979. His case has baffled police in London and Eire because he was not reported as a missing person until August – eight months later. According to his mother Rs Margaret Brereton, Tommy left his home in Arundel Square, Islington. She handed him over to friends Michael and Kathleen O’Hara to take to his grandparents Mr and Mrs Cronan in Ballylicky County Cork. But he never arrived and in spite of an intensive police hunt on both sides of the Irish sea no trace has ever been found of Tommy or the missing O’Haras.

An extra twist in the tragedy is that Tommy was on Islington social service departmental books as a ‘child at risk’. But they did not know he had left his home for eight months. Mrs Brereton who was separated from her husband three years before Tommy disappeared denied reports that she sold the child. Police dug up the garden and ripped up the floorboards of her home in their exhaustive search’.

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

02.11.79. Evening Standard

02.11.79. Aberdeen Express

02.11.79. The Guardian

11.11.79. Sunday Mirror

Desmond Ingram

Islington Gazette 30.1.92

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.

06.02.92. Islington Gazette

Desmond returned home just one week after going missing age 14 on 25th November 1985. It seems the information did not get through to the police.

ISN have not managed to find out about this situation because as the police opinion at the time was so serious. They were investigating 99 boys age 6-16 when went missing between 1983-6 and had eliminated all but 4 including Desmond. It is hard to imagine they did not contact the family and the school and other agencies to continue the search for him until 1992. By any stretch of the imagination this is an unusual story.