Disappearance of Patrick Warren and David Spencer

On Boxing Day evening in 1996, best friends Patrick Warren and David Spencer left their Chelmsley Wood homes to play outside. Patrick left on his brand-new bicycle, which had been a Christmas present, while David was on foot.[3] The boys had been spotted by a police officer earlier that afternoon playing with another group of children in Meriden Park, where they had been warned by the officer not to play on the frozen pond. After returning home, they told their parents of their plans to visit one of Patrick's brothers that evening. Derek Warren, another of Patrick's brothers, went looking for the boys the next day when he found out that they had not arrived.

The last known sighting of the boys was just after midnight by a petrol station attendant who gave them a packet of biscuits. Patrick's brand-new red Apollo bicycle was found abandoned behind the petrol station near the bins, although the police did not realise that it was his until several weeks later.[4][3] The petrol station attendant said he saw the boys walking toward the local shopping centre.[5]

The police initially treated the boys' disappearance as a normal missing persons inquiry, but despite no confirmed sightings of them after Boxing Day, senior officers told the media that there was no reason to suppose that they had come to any harm.[3] Professor David Wilson, a criminologist who studied the police's initial response to the boys' disappearance, concluded that David and Patrick's working-class background affected how their case was handled:

"If it had been two boys from [middle class] Solihull that went missing, that case would've been treated initially very differently. And it's about that word we're never allowed to use, class - this was about a class judgement that was made which was prepared to see them as runaways, as opposed to vulnerable."[3]

Their disappearance received little media attention beyond the local press, and this has been cited as an example of 'missing white girl syndrome'.[1] However, the boys' faces were among the first to appear on milk cartons in a groundbreaking campaign launched by the National Missing Persons Helpline in April 1997.[3]

On the 10th anniversary of their disappearance, the boys were the subject of a BBC Crimewatch special appeal for information, which drew no fresh leads.[6] In 2003, West Midlands Police publicly announced that they had arrested a 37-year-old man in connection with the disappearances; he was later released on bail and has never been charged.[4] Following a second Crimewatch appeal, fresh new leads were announced by the police.

In 2006, the police announced they were "closer than ever" to solving the mystery of what happened to the boys, but despite renewed hope from the families, no one has ever been charged with their abduction.[4] After the case was reviewed in 2006, convicted murderer and paedophile Brian Field was named as a suspect; however, police were not able to secure a confession or obtain tangible evidence to connect him to the boys' disappearance.[3]

In 2016, a fresh appeal for information was launched.[7] DCI Caroline Marsh of West Midlands Police stated her belief that both boys had died, and said that the force would never close the case until it learnt what had happened to them.[7]

• List of people who disappeared