talkmagic.co.uk

I sitting here bored so I am going try to have a proper debate with you people out there. Now on Tm there are sometimes a thread that will crop up every so often "what happend to such and such".

Now if we look at the news we see some bloke got in to a canoe and has came back 5 years later. But the mrs has cashed in life insurance , sold the the house and living some where else.

So my question is how dose one actually disappear? I ponder say some chap of 35 was to go missing and wanted a new life , family etc how dose one go about the logistics of this? It just strikes me as odd how some one can go of and get bank accounts and all that under there new name?

It must be a logistical nightmare sorting it all out.

There are so many complications to even opening a bank account these days that disappearing without leaving a paper trail would be very difficult unless you had criminal contacts who could forge documents.

However, if you dropped out of mainstream society, lived off the black economy and dealt only in cash you may get away with it, but i would not be a fun existance

I doubt this was a spur of the moment thing on his part.

In the year leading up to his 'death' he could have obtained a birth certificate in another name, ordered a few things in that name to a rented address to give it a history, opened a savings account, used these docs to get a passport and hey presto! One new identity perfect for travelling to Panama on..

It seems not to be impossible, with all the talk of ID theft that's always in the news.. from the couple of articles i have read this looks to have been premeditated due to massive debts... (CUPS!?...i don't think so) there's speculation of contacts the other side of the water... looks like they thought they'd got away with it (alleged photo with date) and it's gone very pear shaped from what I can tell...

How easy is it these days to get hold of another persons birth certificate?

In the Day of the Jackal the guy went around a graveyard and found the details of a dead child who would have been around his own age and went from there. But I am not so sure that if you just wrote to wherever these things are kept these days you would just get a copy sent to you.

If you can then a lot of the rest is easy. I still do not see how you get a P45 and without that you can't get a proper job.

It might be fun to see just how far you could get as a law abiding citizen with this. As I say above, with criminal contacts these things would be easier, but starting from scratch as a person who cringes when his wife "steals" seeds from plants in the Botanical Gardens it would bequite a challenge!

Wonder if you would have to give up certian things. Like if you played chess alot in your normal life do you change all that?

Talking of people disappearing, where is stephenmagic? He reappeared a few months ago, and then has just vanished once again. He seems like a decent chap too - exchanged a few PM's with him. Very odd.

Maybe we're looking at this from the wrong angle....just suppose this guy is the North Easts version of Jason Bourne... he's been legging it around being chased by MI5 for the past 5 years trying to figure out who the hell he is, he looks knackered enough now... er.. then again maybe not...

themagicwand wrote:Talking of people disappearing, where is stephenmagic? He reappeared a few months ago, and then has just vanished once again. He seems like a decent chap too - exchanged a few PM's with him. Very odd.

He's working at a restaurant in Panama 3 nights a week, and teaching the locals canoeing during the day

i cant believe no one found it odd enough to check out when he 'crashed' or w.e on a lake that was still as pond water apparantly... i mean you think they'd check a bit more and they only bring these quotes up now... :/

I honestly don't think it would be that hard. There are too many places to hide out. Too many ways to obtain ID's. I could head into the Interior of British Columbia and find a comune or slip onto an Indian Reserve in Canada where the goverment doesn't have a whole lot of power. Stay for awhile figure things out in obscurity and just be gone. I'm just not willing to give up what I have now. Otherwise...who knows?

So it turns, He wasnt really missing and the mrs knew all along. I say the collective effort of Tm could solve this crime.

John Stonehouse, Reggie Perrin and now John Darwin......

Johnny Wizz wrote:How easy is it these days to get hold of another persons birth certificate?

In the Day of the Jackal the guy went around a graveyard and found the details of a dead child who would have been around his own age and went from there. But I am not so sure that if you just wrote to wherever these things are kept these days you would just get a copy sent to you.

In Ireland birth certs are public record. It's only a matter of calling into to the registration office where the person was born and asking for it. AFAIK there is a small processing fee, but that is 15 or 20 euro at the most.

Don't they keep records of everyone leaving the UK? If so, is that a new thing, or would he have had to get around it to escape the country without leaving a paper trail?