[1][3] Cooke's gang have also been the subject of several investigations into possible links to the disappearances of two boys, Martin Allen and Vishal Mehrotra, who were abducted from London in 1979 and 1981 respectively.
[3] In the 1970s, Cooke and a group of approximately twelve paedophiles began hiring rent boys and abducting young male children off the streets.
[3] In November 1985, a group led by Cooke had gang raped 14-year-old Jason Swift (born 1 March 1971) in what the media described as a homosexual orgy.
[3][6] After Swift's body was found in a shallow grave by a dog walker, an investigation by the Metropolitan Police led to the arrest of Cooke along with three accomplices: Leslie Bailey, Robert Oliver[7] and Steven Barrell.
[8] Bailey and other gang members[9] told authorities that Cooke was among those who murdered Mark Tildesley, a seven-year-old boy, in Wokingham, Berkshire on 1 June 1984.
As Bailey was the only one who confessed to Tildesley's murder, the CPS decided to only formally press charges against him for the killing despite him[3] and other gang members[9] naming Cooke as the perpetrator, as fellow paedophiles are not considered reliable witnesses in a court of law.
[2] Members of the ring also reportedly made references to killing Lewis, whose murder was at this point still unsolved but of which detectives on the Swift enquiry were already aware.
[2] Gabb also provided detectives with maps he had drawn based on the descriptions of where the ring members claimed they had buried their victims, to which police responded by searching several sites of interest.
Three days later, Cooke was charged at Reading police station with committing eighteen sex offences which occurred between 1972 and 1981 in south London, Berkshire, Kent, Tyne and Wear and Hertfordshire; he was moved back to prison on remand.
[9] He was refused parole most recently in October 2021, aged 94, on the grounds that his behaviour while imprisoned "had been mixed and had provoked concerns and even allegations over the years".
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.
After a televised appeal five weeks after Allen's disappearance, 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.
The witness described the man as six feet tall, in his thirties, well built, with very blonde hair and a moustache, and wearing a denim jacket and trousers.
[31] The location of Elm Guest House, along with the alleged activities of the individuals involved there, have led to media speculation that Allen was abused and murdered by paedophiles operating there.
[33] On 29 July 1981, after watching the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in London, 8-year-old Vishal Mehrotra's family returned to East Putney by train, where they arrived around 1:40 pm.
On 25 February 1982, two men discovered a skull, seven ribs and some vertebrae at Alder Copse, Durleigh Marsh Farm, Rogate, near Petersfield.
[34] The "Dirty Dozen" investigative team held a meeting with Sussex Police at the time but no concrete evidence was found to link the enquiries.
[36] The report also revealed that the Metropolitan Police's paedophile unit had concluded there were "strong similarities" between Mehrota's case and the gang's known killings.