Читать книгу Innocents - Jonathan Rose - Страница 11
ОглавлениеAs October had come to a close, it was clear that the case had reached something of a hiatus, and that some further impetus was needed if the investigation was to make further progress. It was with that in mind that Dick Holland renewed appeals to the public through the media. General information was still flowing into the incident room, but Holland did not want generalities, he needed specifics. He needed specific information concerning the Morris 1000 van, the light-coloured car and, importantly, concerning offences involving indecency. In addition, Holland made an appeal to one person, a person whom he did not know, but strongly believed existed. That person, in Holland’s opinion, knew the identity of the killer, but was shielding him out of a misplaced sense of loyalty. Holland appealed to that unknown individual to come forward.
Use of the media was a carefully approached tactic. From the outset Dibb and Holland had to determine what information should be withheld, and two matters in particular remained only with the police: the fact that the killer had ejaculated over Lesley and that her underclothes had not been removed. Withholding this information had two purposes. Firstly, it enabled cranks, persons who made false confessions, to be eliminated. If they failed to mention the two withheld facts, it would be unlikely that they were genuinely confessing. The second reason was that these facts would enable the true killer to be identified, since only the actual killer would be able to specify these facts in the course of making a confession. In 1975 this was crucial, since it would enable a prosecutor to point to the two specific matters as irrefutable evidence that the confession was genuine.
As the appeals continued and information came in, the investigation team deliberately investigated every act of indecency which was brought to their attention. Many were discounted; others were pursued even though it was believed unlikely that anything useful to the murder enquiry would be found, but the investigative course was essential if no stone was to be left unturned, however remote the chances were.
In 1975 the principle of ‘best chance’ did not apply. Today, financial and human resource constraints imposed on investigators, together with increased and competing demands on the modern police force have brought a new discipline to murder enquiries. Officers are now committed to those enquiries which are regarded as having the best prospect of producing a detection, and investigations are structured on a computer which enables prioritisation of lines of enquiry, at any given time in the investigation. This methodology has to be compared with the systems in place only twenty years ago, when much depended on the personal knowledge of individual officers as to a particular line of enquiry, with no certainty that an officer would be aware of the stage other enquiries had reached. Curiously, this method had an advantage over the ‘modern’ system in that it enabled a substantial number of other crimes to be detected in the course of a murder investigation, a result lacking in the more refined approach of the 1990s.
Of course, even at that time enquiries were prioritised. Dick Holland used experience, personal knowledge and instinct to select what he considered to be the first priority, which were reports of indecency which were similar to those of Lesley’s abduction or geographically proximate to the Molseed case. In the former category local detectives believed that the abduction of an 8-year-old girl earlier in 1975 might provide a link.
At 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 12 August 1975 ‘Jennifer’1 was playing with her 7-year-old sister ‘Francine’ by the side of the Leeds Manchester Canal at Miles Platting, near Manchester. They were fishing for tiddlers using a small fishing net, keeping their catch in a little blue bucket. A man, who later called himself ‘John’ came and stood near them before looking down into the water at the fish, and then turning and smiling at the two girls. He said ‘Hello’ and the girls both answered him ‘Hello’, before Francine wandered off. John then engaged Jennifer in conversation about the fish, before offering to take her to a park where there were lots more fish. He took her in a white car, past a City of Salford road sign and to a shop, where he bought her mints and a can of Pepsi Cola. He had told her that he lived near the shop, but had then taken her by car to another place which he said was near Heaton Park. He had driven on, however, until he came to a car park and, from there, led the child on foot across a field and to a much larger field where they sat down. There, the man undressed Jennifer, removed his trousers and underpants and lay on top of her, kissing and sucking her body whilst he attempted to have intercourse with her. He failed to do so, but did ejaculate on to her stomach.
Even after he had dressed, John kept the child with him, she wearing only her underpants. He took her to swim in a nearby pond, after which he again took her to a field where he repeated the previous sexual assault, before taking her back to the canalside where he had first met her.
Jennifer had been abducted for a three-hour period, but, despite her ordeal, she was able to give police to whom her mother reported the incident a graphic and detailed account of the events of that day. So accurate were the details that the police were able to trace a man to whom Jennifer had spoken at the pond where she and John had swum, and he was able to confirm Jennifer’s description of John as being a well-built, muscular man of 33 to 35 years of age, with short, well-groomed black hair. He was about five feet ten inches tall, had a distinctively hairy chest, a deep suntan and wore a silver watch. Despite the description, John was never caught.
The team investigating Lesley’s murder considered this report, and believed that it gave them some possible insight into what may have happened to Lesley during the last hours of her life, and, in particular, how very easy it was to abduct, or take away, an unsuspecting and trusting child, even where, as in the case of John and Jennifer, other members of the public are in the immediate proximity.
In truth, it must be asked quite how useful the John/Jennifer case was to the investigating officers in the Molseed case. It was a child abduction case involving a little girl, and the perpetrator had ejaculated on to the child, but in many respects it was so very different. The obvious difference is that Jennifer was not subjected to any violence at all. Lesley was not undressed in what might be termed ‘the sexual phase’ of the incident, and her killer had ejaculated on to her clothing. John had attempted to rape Jennifer, but there was no evidence whatsoever that Lesley’s killer had attempted to have sexual intercourse with her, or had interfered with her in any sexual way at all. As for the other features of the Jennifer case, they indicated only that a child abductor might use sweets and lemonade to lure a child, and that much must have been obvious to the experienced police officers.
It would appear, however, that the police were aware of the substantial differences between the two cases, and that their interest had been aroused simply by reason of the fact of abduction of a young girl and the fact of ejaculation. The case illustrates the methodology being used by the police at this stage in the investigation. It was a method with many merits, and those merits would become patently clear in two cases much closer to Lesley Molseed’s home, lifestyle and the date of her death.
At about 8.15 p.m. on Friday, 3 October 1975 two girls called Ann Marie Storto and Sheila Woodhead, both aged 10, were walking home from the Kingsway Youth Club in Rochdale, of which Lesley was a member. As the girls approached the clinic on the corner of Stiups Lane and Kingsway, they saw a man in the clinic porchway, leaning against the wall with one hand in his pocket, who appeared to be staring at them. Through real or imagined fear, the girls walked away, at which point they were later to say that the man began to follow them, whereupon they both ran back to the youth club. They described the man as being about five feet ten inches tall, thin, with dark hair, wearing a dark overcoat and a dark wool knitted printed skull cap. They also described a large dark-green or yellow car in the area, parked with its radio playing very loud.
A part-time youth leader at the club, a Mr Alfred Sutcliffe, was told that a man had stopped the two girls, but that some older girls would walk Ann Marie and Sheila home. As a precaution Mr Sutcliffe walked behind the group of girls to Ann Marie’s house, and then walked the older girls back to the club, where he telephoned the police. He did not see any men in the area, and Police Constable Stefan Kowal, who attended at the youth club at about 8.45 p.m. and conducted a search of the immediate vicinity was also unable to find anyone.
There is very little that is remarkable in the account of the two girls, or of the two adults who gave statements concerning this incident, but it began to take on rather different proportions and have yet more significance when statements were taken from other children who had been in the youth club that Friday night.
Debbie Brown, who was then 13 years old, told the police that Ann Marie Storto had said that the man at the clinic had followed and tried to stop her and Sheila, and that he had had a knife. She said that herself, Maxine Buckley and Debra Mills (both aged 12) then walked the younger girls home.
According to Debbie Brown, Maxine Buckley and Debra Mills, there then followed an incident in which one of these girls was to say that a man exposed himself, but the accounts of the three girls vary so much, and the incident itself has so much relevance in the later proceedings, that there is some value in examining the details. It should be borne in mind that neither Ann Marie Storto nor Sheila Woodhead reported any incident of indecent exposure on the night of 3 October 1975. Nor, of course, did Alfred Sutcliffe, the youth club worker who had walked behind the group of girls on the way home.
Debbie Brown gave two statements to the police, one made on 8 October and the second on 9 October.
In her first statement she said that she had been in the youth club with Ann Marie and Sheila, and that Ann Marie had gone outside (alone) and had then come running back in, whereupon all three of them – that is, herself, Ann Marie and Sheila – had gone outside and seen a man, aged 30 to 40, five foot nine inches tall, with a long thin face and receding hair, wearing a dark beret, grey trousers and black coat and shoes. The man had opened his coat and exposed himself, dropping his trousers to reveal a scar down his left leg which ran down to his knee. They had all gone back into the club and told Alfred Sutcliffe, who had chased the man away. Debbie Brown reported seeing a dark car with its window open and music coming from the radio.
In Debbie Brown’s second statement, made only a day later, she said that after Ann Marie Storto had first told her about the man, they had told Alfred Sutcliffe and then herself, Debra Mills and Maxine Buckley had walked the younger girls home. Apart from the change in the sequence of events and the absence of any reference in the second statement to Mr Sutcliffe chasing the man, this later statement is remarkable in that it incorporates Debra Mills and Maxine Buckley as being present during and witnesses to the indecent exposure, for the first time.2
Debra Mills made two statements concerning this incident: on 9 October and then 2 January 1976. In those statements she spoke of leaving the youth club with Miss Brown, Miss Buckley and the two younger girls, when they saw a man standing on the footpath, ‘staring at us’. Mr Sutcliffe had then approached and they had told him about the man, but the man had then disappeared. She made no reference at all to any incident of indecent exposure.
Maxine Buckley’s first statement was made on 9 October, and she too spoke of leaving the club with Debbie, Debra and the two younger girls, and of seeing a thin man in a beret who had stared at them, but had disappeared before Mr Sutcliffe had come on to the scene. She too had seen a green car with loud music playing through an open window. She had telephoned her mother who had, in turn, telephoned the police. She made a further statement in December 1975, but that statement too made no reference to any indecent exposure on 3 October. Maxine was never to change her version of the night’s events and police found her to be a consistent and reliable witness.
Other children made statements concerning Friday, 3 October. Beverley Mullins, aged 12, described seeing a man outside the clinic wearing ‘a black mask with two eye holes, two nostril holes and a mouth hole’, although in a later statement she amended this vivid and detailed description to ‘a black beret … like girl guides wear’. Colin Peers, aged 12, spoke of the man wearing ‘a dark trilby hat’ and having a pair of binoculars around his neck. Sarah Lord, a 10-year-old girl, made no reference to either a hat or binoculars. Sarah spoke of seeing the man through the youth club windows at which time she thought he had a knife. Sarah’s statement had made no reference to any peculiarity in the man’s walk although, ominously perhaps, she had added that she had seen the man again the next day: in Delamere Road.
Only Debbie Brown, in her first statement to the police, made reference to an incident of indecent exposure on 3 October. It might be easier to dismiss her statement as merely wild exaggeration (such as those of Beverley Mullins concerning a ski-mask) or an error, rather than to assert that she was lying, but subsequent events might point more forcefully to her being deliberately misleading.
The officers involved in the investigation were doubtful concerning the statements given by the younger children, particularly since only those of Ann Marie Storto and Sheila Woodhead matched those given by Alfred Sutcliffe. Some support for Miss Brown’s allegation of indecent exposure was to come, however, and that support came from a source apparently quite separate from and independent of the younger children. Three older girls, aged between 16 and 18, gave statements to the police concerning the night of 3 October.
Catherine ‘Kitty’ Burke, Gillian Cleave and Pamela Hind had approached the youth club at about 9.50 p.m., and had seen a man standing in the clinic doorway. He had jumped out in front of Kitty and Pamela and had then opened his coat. His trousers fell down to his ankles and his penis was exposed, and he had said, ‘When I get you two bastards I’ll shove this right up you.’ The man was described as being aged 35 to 40, fairly tall and broadly built, with dark collar-length hair, and wearing a dark coat, trousers and a dark flat cap. Pamela Hind, in her statement, gave a version of events which differed slightly from that of her friend Kitty. Rather than the man dropping his trousers, she said that he had unzipped them and taken his erect penis out. He had shouted, ‘Come here, let me ram this up you,’ as the girls had run away. Gillian was not interviewed until some ten days later, and all that she was able to recall was Pamela and Catherine running up to her, saying, ‘Run, he’s got his thing out.’ Her description was of a man between five feet ten and five feet eleven, 30 to 40 and well-built, but not fat, with dark collar-length hair. In merely repeating her friends’ words, there was no suggestion that Gillian was lying about the event.
The incident of 3 October was not one which could readily be connected with any identifiable man, but it was the first of two similar incidents in the days immediately preceding the disappearance of Lesley Molseed which caused alarm to the children and parents living in the area around Lesley’s home.
On Saturday, 4 October at about 12.50 p.m., Maxine Buckley and Debra Mills, two of the girls who had been part of the events of the night before, were walking along Vavasour Street when they saw a man on the corner of Jackson Street. He was between 20 and 30, five foot ten to six foot, broad build or fat, smooth complexion with light-brown hair and ‘staring eyes’. He was wearing a light-green parka jacket, and he crossed the road to stand in front of the two girls, before opening his coat and exposing his erect penis. He then ran off along Vavasour Street towards Crawford Street.
Maxine ran straight home, from where her sister reported the matter to the police. When Maxine Buckley’s mother arrived home a short time later, her daughter exclaimed, ‘A man has exposed himself to me in Vavasour Street. I think it was the man who lives in Crawford Street, the house with the plants in the window.’3 Maxine would remain insistent that this was what she had seen and her mother was entirely convinced of the truthfulness of her daughter’s account.
Police Constable Peter Sergeant responded to the call, but he was unable to find anyone in the area matching the description given by the girls. The officer then drove the girls to Crawford Street where Maxine pointed out number 31 as the house where she believed the man lived, but after waiting for some time, hoping to see the occupants, he formed the opinion that nobody was living in the premises as they appeared empty. Being unable to do anything further he took the girls home, only later referring the matter to the incident room.
In a little more than twenty-four hours, Lesley Molseed would be on her way to her death.
A further month was to pass before the third part of the trilogy of events which had as a central player Maxine Buckley. This matter again resulted in a telephone call to the police from her mother, but this call was rather more sinister, and did spur prompt action by the investigation team once it was linked to the alleged exposure of 4 October.
It was Wednesday, 5 November 1975. Bonfire Night. A night for fireworks and bonfires and children out on the streets long after their normal bedtimes, carried along by the excitement of the smells and noises and colours of this most exhilarating of evenings. Children chanting the traditional nursery rhyme, ‘Remember remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot.’ How well would this Bonfire Night be remembered in years to come.
Maxine Buckley was walking home from a bonfire party, with a friend called Michael Rigby, along Vavasour Street, at about eight thirty in the evening, when she saw, she was to say, the same man who had exposed himself to her and Debra Mills on 4 October. He was walking towards her, wearing the same parka coat, and, whilst he did not expose himself to the girl, he stared at her and pulled faces, whilst grinding his teeth, such that the child was terrified. Michael Rigby had seen Maxine’s expression change, from smiling and chattering to blank fear. He too saw the man’s face then and, being equally afraid, he and Maxine both ran to find her mother. The police were called and took Maxine and Michael off in a car to try to find the man, with little success. But when the children returned, Carole Rigby took Mrs Buckley and the two children out in her van, and drove, at Mrs Buckley’s direction, to a house in Crawford Street. It was a terraced house, with a profusion of plants in the window. The front door of the house was open and the open doorway was well illuminated. The adults saw in the doorway a big man and a small woman. The man matched the description which both children had given, including the dark trousers and light-coloured shirt which he was still wearing. They alighted from the van. The man began to shout ‘What do you want me for, I’ve done nothing,’ over and over, whilst Michael Rigby was brought from the back of the van. Maxine was too scared to leave the van, and she was crying, but she was able to see the man, and she spoke, ‘That’s him, mum.’ ‘It is him,’ said Michael Rigby.
The house was at 31 Crawford Street. The man was Stefan Kiszko.
