On a cold September morning in 1969, David Leckeyand Jonathan Aven left for school in Belfast.
But both the boys never came home.
For years, the families of David, who was 11, and Jonathan, who was 14, have been left searching for answers.
But now, after six decades, the families may get some closure, as police launched a fresh appeal.
Police believe that the boys may have got on the train to Bangor, Co Down; however, their family stressed that there was nothing to suggest that the boys had any intention of running away.
Police said David’s family had ‘no indication that he was unhappy or in trouble of any kind and didn’t think he would ever have left home’ when he went missing.
Meanwhile, Jonathan was described by his father as a ‘happy little boy’ who attended Ashfield Boys’ School’, which he seemed to like and appeared to be doing well at’.
While police never got to the bottom of the case, it was among those featured in Lost Boys: Belfast’s Missing Children, a documentary delving into several children’s disappearances in the 1960s-’70s – and filmmakers raised the suggestion of a ‘paedophile network’.
During the winter of 1969, young boys started to disappear from the streets of Belfast, never to be seen again. By 1974, as the Troubles were at their peak, five boys in total had vanished within a five-mile radius.
David and Jonathan were the first two boys to vanish, while Thomas Spence, 11, and John Rodgers, 13, were last sighted at a bus stop on the Falls Road in November 1974.
Police have made a new appeal for information over two boys who went missing nearly 60 years ago. Jonathan Aven, 14, (pictured) from Sydenham Drive in East Belfast, went missing after skipped school without permission in September 1969
Ten-year-old Brian McDermott was last seen in Ormeau Park on September 2, 1973.
His mutilated remains were later found in a sack in the River Lagan at Annadale Embankment.
No one was ever arrested in connection with Brian’s murder, or any of the other four boys’ disappearances.
The documentary raised disturbing questions about whether some of the cases may be linked, and whether institutional failures, possibly even deliberate cover-ups, may have allowed potential predators to escape justice.
The filmmakers made the case that British intelligence may have interfered with the police investigations in order to protect ‘assets’ who were known paedophiles.
Speaking to The BelTel podcast, the documentaries director Des Henderson spoke about the disappearances.
He said: ‘These two kids [Jonathan and David] went missing in 1969 from the east of the city. They had bunked off school and they’d went on a bit of an adventure, it sounds like, from what we could piece together with two other kids.
‘And two other kids met at home, and those two didn’t and were never seen again. The parallels with the story in 1974 it’s just, it’s eerily similar.
‘And that’s where we really started to think there might be something here.’
The family of David Leckey, 11, (pictured) from Memel Street, had ‘no indication that he was unhappy or in trouble of any kind and didn’t think he would ever have left home’ when he went missing
While the disappearance of David and Jonathan attracted limited media attention at the time, the brutal murder of Brian McDermott was widely reported, largely due to the shocking and disturbing circumstances surrounding his death.
Des added: ‘Brian McDermott is a really interesting case when looking at these cases as a whole. It was September 1973 in the Ormeau Park area where he went missing.
‘Ten days later, his body was found in a sack in the River Lagan. His body had been dismembered. The remains were charred.’
Des revealed that Professor David Canter, a renowned forensic psychologist and criminal profiler, believes the McDermott case is key to understanding what may have happened to the other missing boys in Belfast.
He argued that McDermott’s body was never meant to be found, and given the similar time frame and age profile, this case could hold vital clues.
Thomas Spence and John Rodgers were officially declared murder victims in 2001 -nearly 30 years after they vanished.
Just a day before the 9/11 attacks, police began digging at properties on Rodney Drive in west Belfast, searching for their remains.
Tragically, only the body of a dog was found, but the case was formally upgraded to a double murder inquiry.
Des believes David and Jonathan were also murdered, however police have never found evidence to support this.
Des added: ‘Four boys falling victim to some random accident and no trace ever being found of their clothing, of their school bags. That’s just not credible.
‘So that leaves us with one possibility really, and that is that someone has sought to do them harm.
‘You know, they’ve been abducted, they’ve been murdered, and I think we’re very confident in saying that because throughout the world, throughout these cases, that is where the vast, vast majority, we’re talking 99 percent of these cases, that is where it ends up.’
While the Troubles likely contributed to the lack of urgency in investigating the boys’ disappearances as resources were stretched thin, the documentary also questioned if the disappearances were deliberately overlooked.
Kincora Boys’ Home in East Belfast, where horrific institutional abuse of young boys went on for decades, only came to light in 1980.
Speaking on the podcast, Des said: ‘So, what we have been able to establish through the film is that abuse was taking place there for decades and we have British Army Intelligence whistleblowers in the film who claim that they knew what was happening at Kinkora and tried to raise the alarm.
‘[What] we’ve come to in the film is that there was a paedophile network, and we name ten people in the film who all operated, I would say, loosely together.
‘We’ve established connections between the ten people. They were friends, they were confidants, they shared information, and they abused boys.’
Kincora Boys’ Home was only a mile away from where David Leckie lived and only half a mile away from where Jonathan Avon lived.
The case was never officially closed and it is now being looked at again by the Police Service of Northern Ireland‘s legacy investigation branch.
Speaking to the BBC: Det Insp Armstrong said: ‘The pain and suffering of not knowing throughout the years must be unimaginable.
‘This remains an open missing persons case with the circumstances around their disappearance still unexplained.’
The officer said detectives would ‘consider all investigative opportunities and follow all lines of enquiry as part of the review and will consider any potential criminal offences that may be linked to their disappearance’.
He continued: ‘Detectives are aware of reports that the boys may have got the train to Bangor prior to their disappearance and would be keen to hear from anyone who may have encountered the boys in any circumstances or location over the past 56 years.’
Belfast law firm KRW Law, which acts for the Aven and Leckey families, welcomed the fresh appeal for information.
The families solicitor Owen Winters said it is never too late for justice and he urged police to link ‘other similarly themed cases’.
‘Of particular concern to us is the need to have a linked approach to the disappearance of Jonathan and David in 1969 together with other similarly themed cases,’ he told the Independent.
‘Incredibly, despite evidence connecting a series of other disappearances and killings, there was never any attempt to join all cases together. Until now.
‘We have urged police to have all cases and incidents under the auspices of one centralised investigative approach. In this way there will be a mutual dividend for all engaged families.’
Detectives can be contacted on 101 or by emailing LIBEnquiries@psni.pnn.police.uk quoting reference RM14009442.