Lee Boxell

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Metropolitan Police (SERVICE)

Missing From:

Cheam, Surrey

Summary:

Lee Darren Boxell, a 15-year-old schoolboy from Cheam in the London Borough of Sutton, disappeared on 10 September 1988 after spending the morning with a friend in nearby Sutton. He was last seen at 2:20 pm on Sutton High Street and had mentioned the possibility of attending a football match at Selhurst Park. The case remains open and unsolved.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

On the morning of Saturday 10 September 1988, Boxell left his home in Cheam, in the London Borough of Sutton, to meet a friend at 11 am in the nearby town of Sutton. Boxell and his friend spent a couple of hours window shopping and parted company at 1 pm. When he was leaving, Boxell said he might go to Selhurst Park football stadium to watch a match between Charlton Athletic F.C. and Millwall F.C. However, a witness did come forward to say that they had spotted him outside a Tesco location on Sutton High Street (now an Asda) at 2:20 pm. According to The Detective Podcast his Swatch watch was found dumped nearby, it had stopped at 2.22. He has not been seen since.

Additional Details:

A national television appeal on BBC's Crimewatch was broadcast on December 8, 1988, generating over a dozen calls, though none led to resolution at the time. From 2012 onwards, investigators began developing a theory that Boxell might have attended an unofficial youth club in the annexe of St Dunstan's Church in Cheam, known as "The Shed", which was previously unknown to the police. William Lambert, the St Dunstan's graveyard digger who ran The Shed, was jailed for eleven years in 2011, when he was aged 75, after sexually abusing four girls who attended the club. Between June and September 2012 the police excavated part of the St Dunstan's graveyard, digs which resumed in April 2013. In 2013, to coincide with what would have been Boxell's 40th birthday, Crimewatch featured another appeal for information, working on the new theory that Boxell attended The Shed on the day he disappeared. In 2018, a Scotland Yard spokesman confirmed that cold case detectives had interviewed a potential witness and new information was being investigated that could lead to Boxell's remains being found. The following year Lambert, then aged 78, and two other men aged 52 and 41 were arrested on suspicion of murdering Lee. They were all later released without charge. In 2019 detectives said they believed that Lee was killed after he witnessed a teenager being sexually assaulted at the club that afternoon and either intervened or threatened to expose the suspect. In September 2023, on the 35th anniversary of Lee Boxell's disappearance, the Metropolitan Police issued a renewed appeal for witnesses, particularly those who attended an unofficial youth club known as "the Shed" at St Dunstan's Church in Cheam. The appeal followed an unsuccessful archaeological dig at the churchyard site. In 2001, links were suggested between Boxell's disappearance and the late Brian Lunn Field, a paedophile and serial sex offender who had recently been arrested for the 1968 murder of Roy Tutill. Boxell's mother dismissed a link, stating correctly that Field was in prison from 1987 to 1990.

Case Last Updated:

Jul 17, 2026