Brother of missing boy begs witnesses to come forward 20 years after pals David Spencer, 13, and Patrick Warren, 11, vanished on Boxing Day
David's little brother urged anyone with information about the pair - whose bodies have never been found - to come forward and help distraught families finally put them to rest
THE brother of a boy feared dead after he and a friend vanished on Boxing Day has made a fresh plea for information on the 20th anniversary of his disappearance.
Pals David Spencer, 13, and Patrick Warren, 11, went out to visit a relative on December 26, 1996, but never returned home.
Now David's little brother Lee O'Toole has desperately urged anyone with information to come forward so their families can finally move on after two agonising decades of not knowing what happened to their beloved boys.
Lee, who was nine when David disappeared from his home in Chelmsley Wood, West Mids, said: "I'm convinced there's somebody out there that knows something that's happened to my brother and I beg them to come forward, even with the littlest bit of information possible.
"It's the difference between finding him and putting him to rest and my family being able to move on and have somewhere to put flowers down.
The youngsters were warned of the dangers of playing on the ice and told to go home, but when they arrived home they each told their parents they were going to visit one of Patrick's brothers.
The last known sighting of the boys was at a Shell petrol station in Chelmsley Wood just after midnight, where an attendant gave them a packet of biscuits.
They were reported missing first thing the next morning, December 27, 1996.
Patrick’s red Apollo bicycle, a beloved Christmas gift, was found at the back of the petrol station.
Explaining the impact of David's disappearance, an emotional Lee, now 29, said: “He was like my backbone, my role model. He was my older brother and I looked up to him.
“If I needed anything, I went to him. He would have been somebody I could talked to over the years – and all of that was taken away.
“There is not a day goes by when I don’t think about him.”
West Midlands Police say that the investigation into the disappearance of the two boys continues and detectives will re-investigate the case if new information comes to light.
The boys' pictures featured on milk cartons in 1997 in a ground-breaking campaign, and their disappearance was on BBC’s Crimewatch in 2006.
In addition to Field being questioned, a 37-year-old man was arrested in connection with their disappearance in 2003 but was later released on police bail.
Last year, an expert criminologist said that if Field was responsible, he was likely to take his secret to the grave - like serial killer Ian Brady.
Prof Wilson, who stars in Channel 5 series Killers Behind Bars, told the: “If he was responsible, then he is unlikely to ever reveal what happened to them.
“People who have killed repeatedly are often unwilling, silent and uncommunicative.
“They never admit to the crimes they have committed, even when the evidence is in front of them.
"A normal person would want to purge themselves of guilt. A psychopath doesn’t think like that."
Moors murderer Brady has been repeatedly implored to reveal the locations of his 12-year-old victim Keith Bennett.
Anyone with new information should call Detective Chief Inspector Caroline Marsh on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111
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