Martin Allen and his brothers grew up in a council flat in Hornsey in north London, where their mother was a secretary at Tufnell Park Primary School.
[1] Allen attended the Central Foundation Grammar School in Old Street and was described as intelligent, good at French, maths and drawing.
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.
[1] At around 3:50 pm, 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.
[1] When Allen was reported missing, a large-scale police operation was launched supported by a media campaign; this failed to locate him.
After a televised appeal five weeks after Allen's disappearance,[3] a male witness came forward to report seeing a man accompanying a boy acting suspiciously at Gloucester Road station at 4:15 pm, about half an hour after Martin vanished.
[7] The witness described the man as six feet tall, in his thirties, well built, with very blonde hair and moustache, and wearing a denim jacket and trousers.
[9] In 1998 it was reported that police in Liverpool, acting on an anonymous tip off, had discovered a "shrine" dedicated to Allen at the home of an alleged paedophile.
[9] The location of Elm Guest House, along with the alleged activities of the individuals involved there, have led to media speculation that Allen and Vishal Mehrotra were abused and murdered by paedophiles operating there.
[11] In 2015, Operation Midland officers interviewed Carl Beech, then known publicly under the pseudonym "Nick", who falsely claimed that he saw three boys being murdered by the paedophile ring: one was run over, another strangled by a Conservative MP and the third killed in front of a government minister.