Robert Black - Caught on Tape Spotlight


Robert Black - Caught on Tape

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Van driver Robert Black, one of Britain's infamous child killers,

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died in Northern Ireland last month.

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He never admitted to any crime, but in these actual police

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interviews, he gave away some of his secrets.

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Nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy was one of his victims.

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The bogeyman was real, and he is out there.

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The scale of Black's offences shocked experts.

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His inner world was empty, bleak,

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disturbingly frightening.

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A sense of massive nothingness.

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He was most definitely evil, and he had went down the road of evil

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and just gathered evil as he went along.

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Tonight on Spotlight, the police officer,

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the predator and the end of his criminal career.

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He was feeling sorry for himself. It wasn't remorse.

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He has never shown remorse for what he did.

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The actual voice of serial child killer Robert Black.

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In these police interviews,

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he's outlining what he says are his fantasies about abusing young girls.

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Black was an opportunistic predator.

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He snatched schoolgirls off the streets in broad daylight,

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and drove off as fast as possible.

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It worked for him for 30 years, until one day, he made a mistake.

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Black's life of crime came to a sudden halt here in the small

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Scottish village of Stow, not far from the border with England.

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It was just by sheer chance that he was caught in the act of abducting

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a six-year-old girl.

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A neighbour raised the alarm

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when he saw a van driver behaving suspiciously.

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The driver jumped out with a rag in his hand.

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And I was aware at this time of a child walking on the pavement towards

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the back of the van.

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And then the next thing he made a slight movement,

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and the child seemed to disappear.

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Black sped off with the child.

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He found a quiet spot, parked up and sexually assaulted her.

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But he made the mistake of returning to the village.

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I turned to look up the road and shouted, "Oh, there's the van!"

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It is almost on top of us again.

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By that stage, the police were on the scene.

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So the policeman ran down, in front of the van,

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flagged him down, and he swerved across the road,

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the far kerb, and stopped.

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Policeman Ian Turnbull was on duty that day.

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He took us to the exact spot where Black abducted the girl.

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I went to the back of the van, found the back door was locked.

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I actually ran back over to the car

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and radioed in that we had got him stopped.

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And it was at that stage that my colleague told me

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that he thought she was in the back of the van.

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Ian Turnbull was about to make the most shocking discovery of his life.

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There was what looked like rags behind the driver's seat.

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And in amongst that was a sleeping bag.

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Inside the sleeping bag was his own daughter.

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There was tape on her mouth

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and her hands were tied with cord or some sort.

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And, yeah, that was it.

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Black had placed a cushion cover over her head,

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and forced her into the sleeping bag.

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-She must have been absolutely petrified.

-Oh, absolutely terrified.

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Can you imagine a six-year-old lassie and a big bloke like

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Robert Black? That is absolutely petrifying.

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Black was found guilty of abduction and violent sexual assault

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and was jailed for life.

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It seemed his only regret was being caught.

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Even as he comforted his daughter in the van,

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Ian Turnbull recognised the man who had abducted her.

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Strange as it may seem,

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the 1983 incident with Caroline Hogg in Edinburgh, there was a Photofit.

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And believe it or not, I actually recognised

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him as a possibility for fitting that Photofit on that day.

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The police image that Ian Turnbull had recognised had been released

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in connection with the abduction of five-year-old Caroline Hogg.

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She had disappeared from a playground in Edinburgh

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seven years previously.

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The similarities between her abduction

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and the one in Stow sparked widespread police interest.

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Robert Black was now the focus of attention of a total of seven

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police forces...

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looking at unsolved abductions and murders going back 20 years.

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And it soon became clear that Black was the chief suspect.

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He was tried for the murders of Caroline Hogg

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and two other girls, Susan Maxwell and Sarah Harper.

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A 45-year-old man has been charged with murdering three girls.

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The killings had one thing in common.

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The victims had been snatched in broad daylight in seconds,

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and their bodies were dumped hundreds of miles away.

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'Police officers carried into court just a sample of over

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'1.25 million documents prepared during the investigation.'

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It was one of the biggest murder enquiries in Britain.

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Police compiled 20 tonnes of documents.

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At Newcastle Crown Court, Black denied everything.

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It didn't look like a strong case,

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but his employers had kept meticulous records of his

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deliveries that placed him in the areas where the girls had been abducted.

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And fuel receipts placed him close to where the bodies were dumped.

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'Robert Black has been found guilty of murdering three young

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'girls in the 1980s.'

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It was enough to get him three life sentences, to add to the

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one he was already serving in Scotland.

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Robert Black's pattern of offending had now been

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established in England and Scotland.

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It was a pattern that also fitted

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one unsolved murder case in Northern Ireland.

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It was a bright, sunny day in August 1981 when Robert Black

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drove down the A1 to Newry to deliver billboard posters.

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Jennifer Cardy had got a new bike, and had set off after lunch to

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visit a friend before going on holiday the next day.

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So, she was all hyped and excited.

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And this would have been her last day out, and because it was a new

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bicycle, she was so looking forward to doing that.

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And she wouldn't be out on it for another couple of weeks.

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This would be the last time.

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Pat Cardy set the time

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on Jennifer's watch before she left the house.

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It was 1:40.

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She was due home by four, but when she didn't show up,

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initially there was no panic.

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I, in all honesty, wasn't terribly worried

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because youngsters are youngsters, and the word paedophile was

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not in our vocabulary even then, I wouldn't have known

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what a paedophile was.

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And it's very hard sometimes to explain to younger people

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what it was like in them days. And there was no danger.

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Children cycled everywhere.

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And there was no danger, so I really wasn't...

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I wasn't unduly worried,

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but as the night wore on, then obviously we were, so we were.

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We then went out, and I started to search everywhere

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that we thought she would have went. And she never arrived anywhere.

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Jennifer's older brother Mark has never spoken

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publicly about what happened to his sister.

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I think it was around about 9pm.

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I remember my father driving up in the car, he came over to me.

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I wondered, "What's going on?"

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He said, "Did you see Jennifer, do you know where Jennifer is?"

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Jennifer's bicycle was found thrown over

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a hedge into a field about a mile from her home.

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Her bike was found, I think it was about...just about 12:30.

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You know, just after midnight that evening.

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I think then, of course, you had a sense of worry.

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And you didn't know what would happen.

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Up this lane-way here, and on we go.

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In the coming days, there was a huge search, with friends,

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family and strangers joining in.

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The police carried out a reconstruction.

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The search for the missing

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schoolgirl from County Antrim has been widened to Britain.

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Posters and descriptions of nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy, who

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disappeared from her home at Ballinderry near Lough Neagh last week...

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Time goes on and you think that every day without news

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means you've some hope left.

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But yet, every day without news seems to take some hope away.

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So you try and face the inevitable.

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After six days came the news that the Cardy family was dreading.

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It was really, really hard, for every one of us,

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and for the wider family. It was really hard.

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But on that day, um, I...

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We just knew we couldn't go on any longer. And...

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As a Christian, I just brought this again to the Lord

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and just said, "I can't go on."

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And really made a particular...

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prayer about it, and she was found that day.

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We had come to the point that we knew that, after six

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days, that there wasn't going to be a good outcome.

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And I think that we were expecting what we did eventually learn.

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Around the house it was, er, quiet.

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You know, just a quiet... I can't...

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I can't really put my finger on, you know...

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Of course, it was quite traumatic, but it was very quiet, you know,

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because we knew what had happened.

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Robert Black had killed Jennifer

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and left her body here at McKee's Dam,

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a lay-by on the main Belfast to Newry road.

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Her watch had stopped at 5:40.

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Police believe that was the time her body had been put in the water.

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Robert Black then drove off to get the overnight ferry home.

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We lived six days without knowing what had happened to our child,

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but at least at the end of six days

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we found out that she was passed away.

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I went to the morgue and identified her,

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and it was like a reunion in lots of ways.

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And it did, in lots of ways, give me relief, even though

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she was now dead. At least we knew.

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Let us pray.

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Mark Cardy was 13 when Jennifer died.

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I remember the funeral. I remember the funeral day.

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I remember the coffin...

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I think was carried the full way to the graveside,

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because a lot of people wanted to, you know, carry the coffin.

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At least we weren't going to live the rest of our lives

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wondering what happened.

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And the awfulness of that for the families that have not

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recovered bodies, or know exactly what happened to them.

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It's just so awful. It's just a living nightmare.

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McKee's Dam is hidden from view, well away from passing cars.

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It was exactly the sort of place Black liked to take his victims.

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He had driven the Belfast-Newry Road at least a dozen times.

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And he would have known that it was only a few steps

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to the water's edge.

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It would take another 30 years before Robert Black

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would face trial for killing Jennifer in 1981.

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But, after such a long gap in time,

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would it be possible to prove the case?

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Robert Black was born in Stirlingshire in Scotland in 1947.

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He was abandoned at birth by his mother

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and brought up by foster parents.

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They died when he was 11 and he was sent to a council home.

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-Richard.

-Hello, Chris.

-How are you?

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Thank you very much for agreeing to talk to us.

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Pleased to meet you.

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'Psychiatrist Dr Richard Badcock knew Robert Black better than most

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'and regularly met him in prison.

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'He believed he was damaged early on

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'by an isolated and difficult childhood.

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'And had been sexually abused before the age of five.'

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There's no doubt at all in my mind

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that he was seriously sexually abused as a child.

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Bill Nichol arrived at the same children's home at the age of 14.

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Among the boys sharing his dormitory was one two years younger.

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That was that boy, Robert Black, who we knew as Bobby Black.

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He wasn't a great friend of mine.

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Erm...

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we didn't have very much in common at all.

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Apart from the fact he was very more forward

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than he possibly should have been for his age,

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he didn't seem a total mess at all.

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He didn't seem a monster in the making, as it were.

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But, in fact, he was already showing signs of sexual violence by then.

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At the age of 12, he was kicked out of the home

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after he attempted to rape a young girl, who also lived there.

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Black moved out very quickly.

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Nothing, nothing was spoken about.

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Not even between us, the children.

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You know, all the people who were there who knew each other. And...

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knew Black.

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Nobody... No one ever said to me,

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"Did you hear what Bobby Black tried to do to so-and-so?"

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He was swiftly dispatched to another care home.

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Black later told psychiatrists

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he was regularly abused there by a member of staff.

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Whatever the truth of his early life, by the time he left care

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in the early '60s, at the age of 15,

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he was already sexually dangerous.

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He lured a seven-year-old girl into an air raid shelter

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on the pretext of showing her some kittens.

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Once he'd got her there,

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he strangled her until she lost consciousness

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and then he sexually assaulted her.

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That would be the blueprint of his offending for the next 30 years.

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But a psychiatric report at the time concluded

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that this was an isolated incident

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and that Black would be unlikely to reoffend.

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Back then, I don't think people

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so automatically connected early abuse with later offending.

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But, again, now, it would be

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very clear to most people, I think,

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that a child in that position,

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doing those things,

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was acting out

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something left over from

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a highly adverse previous personal experience of a sexual nature.

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Today, that would be attempted murder.

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But Black got away with just a rap on the knuckles.

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That was a missed opportunity to stop Black in his tracks.

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A year later, he assaulted a nine-year-old girl.

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Again, the courts took a lenient view.

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His punishment?

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A year in borstal.

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Those failures of the Scottish legal system

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paved the way for Black to go on offending for three decades.

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And the question is,

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how did he get away with it for so long?

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When he got out of borstal,

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Black decided it was time to leave Scotland.

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In 1970, he moved to the anonymity of London

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and lodged here in an attic room in Stamford Hill.

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He got a job as a van driver,

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delivering billboard posters all over the UK.

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He wasn't a very sociable colleague,

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but he was on the darts team.

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He didn't go out with any of the mates in the team.

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Not as a social, like....

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He'd just...he was a loner.

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He done his own thing.

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We used to say, like,

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"Don't let him near your kids". But...

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it was kind of a joke. A semi-joke.

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He may have been regarded as odd,

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but he managed to keep his dark side hidden

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under the veneer of an ordinary life.

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His job as a van driver was to provide the perfect opportunity

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for a serial offender.

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His van was like a second home.

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He lived and slept in it.

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RECORDING:

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His job allowed him to...

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In fact, his job kind of encouraged him, even,

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to develop that...

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the erm...

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in the sense that he was a reasonably long distance van driver,

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so he was away for long periods of time,

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so it was quite natural for him to sort of base his whole life

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around his vehicle.

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And he got a lot of satisfaction from the fantasising he could do

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while he was driving around in the cab.

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TRAFFIC RUMBLES

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And he soon became obsessed with those fantasies.

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He volunteered for the long-haul routes

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that his work colleagues turned down.

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Among them, the Scotland and Northern Ireland deliveries.

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He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the U.K.'s road network

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and liked to explore minor country roads.

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A total of seven police forces had questioned Black.

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He was serving four life sentences,

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but had never confessed to any crime.

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By 2005, 24 years after Jennifer Cardy was killed,

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it was the turn of the PSNI.

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RECORDING:

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If the PSNI were to have any chance of cracking him,

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they would need to be clever.

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Detective Constable Pamela Simpson

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had 12 years' experience of dealing with sex abuse victims

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in the PSNI Care Unit.

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There wasn't an awful lot that I hadn't

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heard about throughout interviews.

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And you learn not to show shock.

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You learn not to show horror.

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And you learn not to show emotion,

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whenever you are listening to things like that.

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And that was exactly what I did

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whenever I was speaking to Robert Black.

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Was it difficult sometimes?

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It was extremely difficult.

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She now found herself face to face

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with a convicted child killer.

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'It wasn't what I expected.

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'Knowing what I knew about the man,'

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I was expecting a harsh, gruff sort of man.

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-RECORDING:

-'..during the interview.

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'Are you happy enough with that?

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-'Yeah, so far.

-OK.'

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He was very softly spoken.

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He had a soft Scottish lilt

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and, in fact, was very easy listening.

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Psychiatrist Dr Richard Badcock

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had advised the PSNI on how to question Black.

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RECORDING PLAYS

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'He didn't like the word...'

0:25:590:26:01

murder. And...

0:26:010:26:03

he was not someone to admit to anything.

0:26:030:26:06

So, whenever we were interviewing him,

0:26:060:26:08

when the questions were put to him, it was,

0:26:080:26:11

"Do you accept that you were here that day?"

0:26:110:26:14

Pamela Simpson was surprised that he was willing to engage with her.

0:26:160:26:20

'I think everyone was surprised at that,

0:26:210:26:24

'because nobody knew before we went into the interviews

0:26:240:26:27

'whether he was even going to talk at all.'

0:26:270:26:29

And, for some unknown reason,

0:26:290:26:32

he felt comfortable talking to myself.

0:26:320:26:35

'She was open with him,

0:26:350:26:36

'she gave him sort of direct, immediate feedback'

0:26:360:26:39

and he responded to that very positively.

0:26:390:26:42

RECORDING:

0:26:440:26:45

The police had worked on a strategy for their interviews with Black.

0:27:140:27:19

'We had a very clear strategy, in that respect,'

0:27:190:27:22

that, whenever we were speaking to him,

0:27:220:27:25

we wanted him to open up about...

0:27:250:27:28

his sexual preferences, his fantasies.

0:27:280:27:32

And, basically, that is the strategy

0:27:320:27:35

that we went into the interview with.

0:27:350:27:37

The PSNI officers interviewed Black for three days.

0:27:400:27:43

Their strategy started to pay off

0:27:450:27:48

and he began to describe his fantasies.

0:27:480:27:51

RECORDING:

0:27:530:27:57

Dr Badcock, in his role as psychiatric adviser to the PSNI,

0:28:200:28:25

had listened in to the 2005 interviews

0:28:250:28:28

from an adjoining room.

0:28:280:28:31

We played the interviews for him again.

0:28:310:28:34

'The bit about sort of trying to guess the age of the child,'

0:28:340:28:37

that's not the whole story.

0:28:370:28:39

Because he would...

0:28:390:28:40

..he would make a judgement about that immediately.

0:28:420:28:44

Erm, I think what he's...

0:28:440:28:47

what he's thinking about is,

0:28:470:28:49

"What would she look like undressed?"

0:28:490:28:51

Pamela Simpson kept encouraging Black to talk.

0:28:520:28:55

RECORDING:

0:28:570:28:59

The police knew that children wouldn't willingly engage

0:29:260:29:29

with Black in this way.

0:29:290:29:30

The police asked Black about how, in his fantasy,

0:29:330:29:35

he would get a young girl into his van.

0:29:350:29:38

RECORDING:

0:29:410:29:42

Jennifer Cardy had been wearing trousers when she went missing.

0:31:120:31:16

Pamela Simpson's question was aimed at getting Black

0:31:180:31:21

to discuss his abduction of her.

0:31:210:31:23

He had carefully dodged the question.

0:31:240:31:26

RECORDING:

0:31:300:31:32

-And that very long pause.

-Mm-hm.

0:31:460:31:49

Do you attach any significance to that?

0:31:490:31:51

Oh, yeah, course. Yes.

0:31:510:31:52

All Robert's pauses are significant.

0:31:520:31:55

Erm...

0:31:550:31:56

It's not because he's thinking about the answer,

0:31:560:31:59

it's because he's trying not to give stuff away.

0:31:590:32:02

RECORDING:

0:32:100:32:12

With the use of the term "passively compliant",

0:33:150:33:19

it was becoming clear to the police that Black was starting to describe

0:33:190:33:22

some of his actual crimes,

0:33:220:33:24

in which he rendered the girls unconscious.

0:33:240:33:27

In the situation where he is sexually aroused,

0:33:300:33:33

he doesn't want another presence at all.

0:33:330:33:36

It's important to him that he is the only presence there.

0:33:370:33:41

Erm, so...

0:33:410:33:43

Hoping that the child would enjoy it is...

0:33:480:33:52

again, it's something that...

0:33:520:33:55

that he would...

0:33:550:33:57

perhaps like to be the case.

0:33:570:34:00

But it isn't.

0:34:000:34:01

And he knows it isn't.

0:34:010:34:02

You know, he wants the child not there.

0:34:020:34:05

Just the body, really.

0:34:050:34:06

RECORDING:

0:34:090:34:10

Here, Black was describing what happened in Stow,

0:34:530:34:56

when he put a cushion cover over the head of the six-year-old girl

0:34:560:35:00

he'd forced into his van.

0:35:000:35:02

RECORDING:

0:35:060:35:09

-RECORDING:

-I say, in your fantasies,

0:35:240:35:26

you never pick up an awkward customer.

0:35:260:35:28

-You're lucky that way.

-Right, OK.

0:35:280:35:30

Black had no shame in describing his sexual desires for young girls.

0:35:360:35:41

But he seemed to get embarrassed

0:35:410:35:43

when Pamela Simpson asked him about sex aids found in his van.

0:35:430:35:47

They were used for sadomasochistic purposes

0:35:490:35:52

to inflict pain on himself, as he was driving.

0:35:520:35:55

This is one of the areas which he acknowledges is deeply personal.

0:35:560:36:01

A lot of the very personal things he doesn't acknowledge.

0:36:010:36:04

But this area is one.

0:36:040:36:06

You know, because he has devoted a considerable part of his life

0:36:060:36:09

to pursuing it.

0:36:090:36:11

RECORDING:

0:36:120:36:14

That was the one moment where he appeared to lose his cool,

0:36:420:36:45

when she was questioning him about the sex aids

0:36:450:36:48

that he carried in his van.

0:36:480:36:50

He was ashamed in front of Pamela.

0:36:500:36:52

She was a very good interviewing officer.

0:36:520:36:55

She had a very naturalistic, non-judgemental style.

0:36:550:36:58

And he responded to that very positively.

0:36:580:37:00

But even though his scenarios represented as fantasies,

0:37:060:37:10

the police soon realised he was in fact describing reality.

0:37:100:37:14

Whenever we looked at the case after the interviews,

0:37:460:37:51

we felt that in actual fact he had put himself back into that

0:37:510:37:56

position and that he was actually there.

0:37:560:37:59

If you go by the description that he had given in his fantasy,

0:37:590:38:03

the high hedges and the roads sweeping down and up to the left,

0:38:030:38:08

that is exactly the same scene where Jennifer was taken from.

0:38:080:38:14

The final interview, my colleague was putting everything to him

0:38:230:38:27

that we had proved throughout the previous interviews.

0:38:270:38:30

It was evident, as we were going through those last interviews,

0:38:300:38:34

that Black realised himself that he had said too much.

0:38:340:38:37

The head went down, he lost eye contact with us.

0:38:390:38:43

And at the very end of the interview, whenever the tapes

0:38:430:38:46

were off, he knew at that stage that he had said too much.

0:38:460:38:50

It was clear that although the questions were about his fantasies,

0:38:540:39:00

which he was happy to talk about,

0:39:000:39:02

what he was actually talking about were his exact decision-making

0:39:020:39:06

processes during actual offences.

0:39:060:39:09

And you could tell that from his naturalistic language and his

0:39:090:39:13

body language and the whole way in which he presented information.

0:39:130:39:17

So that was very helpful, because that did fill in a few gaps,

0:39:170:39:21

really, about what had actually happened.

0:39:210:39:24

In 2011, Robert Black went on trial in Northern Ireland

0:39:260:39:30

for the murder of Jennifer Cardy.

0:39:300:39:32

There was no forensic evidence, no admission and no eyewitnesses.

0:39:340:39:40

The recorded police interviews would be crucial in getting a conviction.

0:39:400:39:44

Black listened impassively from the dock. A short distance away in the

0:39:450:39:50

public gallery, Jennifer's father, mother, two brothers and sister

0:39:500:39:54

were joined by a large group made up of other family members and friends.

0:39:540:39:58

The Cardy family came face-to-face with Black 30 years after

0:40:020:40:06

he had taken Jennifer.

0:40:060:40:07

We went to this court not wanting to be there,

0:40:100:40:14

not wanting to see his face.

0:40:140:40:17

I thought we were going to hear a pathetic excuse of his bad

0:40:170:40:23

upbringing, which made him do these things.

0:40:230:40:27

And OK, there may be just cause for that.

0:40:280:40:32

But I didn't want to hear that.

0:40:320:40:34

I didn't want to hear of somebody being neglected in their childhood.

0:40:340:40:39

And because of that... Or being abusing their childhood.

0:40:390:40:43

And because of that, having it ingrained in them

0:40:430:40:47

that they would do this to others.

0:40:470:40:50

The first time I saw him, I don't know what I thought, you know,

0:40:530:40:58

you just saw someone who's probably killed my sister.

0:40:580:41:01

And... I never felt hatred, I would have liked to maybe

0:41:010:41:06

just understood, to just know, why would he do that?

0:41:060:41:10

-Did Black ever look at you?

-Never once.

0:41:130:41:16

Never once in Armagh Court, never once did he ever look at any of us.

0:41:160:41:21

He walked up from underneath... The cells were underneath the floor.

0:41:210:41:27

He came up the staircase and turned round and

0:41:270:41:30

went and sat in his seat and just looked in front of him, expressionless.

0:41:300:41:35

And he never once, never once looked at us.

0:41:350:41:39

It was quite harrowing to see the man that you know was

0:41:410:41:46

the last human being your daughter seen.

0:41:460:41:49

And when I saw him walking and seen how old-looking he was,

0:41:490:41:54

same age as me, a year older than me, and how old-looking he was,

0:41:540:41:58

and he was quite pathetic-looking in lots of ways, you know?

0:41:580:42:01

What the Cardy family learned in court about Black

0:42:030:42:06

was beyond their comprehension.

0:42:060:42:08

We had to listen to what he had in the van.

0:42:100:42:13

Instruments that he could use on these children.

0:42:130:42:16

And it just broke your heart. We just sat and cried. It was...

0:42:160:42:21

It broke your heart to see

0:42:210:42:23

and know that a man had done things that were beyond your imagination.

0:42:230:42:29

It wasn't even in your imagination to do what he wanted to do and did,

0:42:290:42:34

and it just broke your heart.

0:42:340:42:36

There's no doubt Black's recorded interviews were harrowing to hear.

0:42:380:42:42

But they were a crucial part of the evidence presented in court.

0:42:420:42:46

Well, he went further than he ever, ever would have wanted to go,

0:42:490:42:53

and there was no taking that back.

0:42:530:42:56

It added to the whole similar fact,

0:42:560:43:00

bad character, and out of his own mouth, he nailed himself.

0:43:000:43:06

-That's the way I look at it.

-Yeah.

0:43:060:43:08

The police interview strategy had worked.

0:43:110:43:14

In 2011, Black was convicted of Jennifer Cardy's murder

0:43:140:43:19

and given another life sentence.

0:43:190:43:21

This time he was sent to Maghaberry Prison.

0:43:220:43:26

By now, he was serving five life sentences.

0:43:260:43:29

Satisfaction knowing that Robert Black will never again

0:43:340:43:39

walk the streets of Great Britain.

0:43:390:43:42

Never again will be able to torture little girls.

0:43:420:43:45

Because that's what he did. He tortured little girls, so he did.

0:43:450:43:50

So there's a lot of satisfaction in today.

0:43:500:43:52

It is not just the convicting of killing Jennifer, it's just, you know...

0:43:520:43:57

How many times has he done it?

0:43:570:43:59

We know he had three murder convictions before,

0:44:030:44:05

this is the fourth one.

0:44:050:44:07

And we know there's a number of suspected ones,

0:44:070:44:09

maybe dating from as far back as 1969.

0:44:090:44:12

Knowing that someone could have done that,

0:44:150:44:17

and done that year upon year upon year and not have got caught.

0:44:170:44:21

After 30 years of secret offending,

0:44:240:44:27

Robert Black's crimes were finally made public.

0:44:270:44:30

What's never really been made clear is what turned this

0:44:310:44:35

opportunistic predator into a murderer.

0:44:350:44:38

He has to take responsibility for what he did in terms of offending.

0:44:410:44:45

The person who abused him

0:44:450:44:47

has to take responsibility for starting the process.

0:44:470:44:52

Or the PERSONS who abused him

0:44:520:44:54

have to take responsibility for starting it off.

0:44:540:44:57

-By the time he was an adult, it was too late.

-I think so.

0:44:570:45:02

So, by the time he was an adult,

0:45:020:45:04

had he developed that instinct to kill as well as to sexually assault?

0:45:040:45:09

It seems a terrible thing to say,

0:45:090:45:12

but I believe he had no interest in killing children.

0:45:120:45:17

What he had an interest in, in fact an obsession

0:45:170:45:19

and fascination for, was in possessing the body

0:45:190:45:23

of a child for a period long enough for him to be able to

0:45:230:45:29

develop, or enact, fantasies.

0:45:290:45:33

Whatever caused Black to become a serial killer of young girls,

0:45:360:45:41

he never appeared to show remorse.

0:45:410:45:43

However, he did seem to have a complicated insight

0:45:430:45:47

into his own behaviour.

0:45:470:45:49

Do you think, though, that that

0:46:580:47:00

was the closest perhaps he ever came to showing any kind of remorse at all?

0:47:000:47:04

No. My attitude to that was that

0:47:060:47:09

he was feeling sorry for himself.

0:47:090:47:12

It wasn't remorse. He's never shown remorse for what he did.

0:47:120:47:17

Again, that was the ilk of the man.

0:47:170:47:19

He was feeling sorry for himself.

0:47:210:47:23

Over the years, Black was examined by numerous psychiatrists

0:47:240:47:28

and psychologists. He once asked one of them

0:47:280:47:31

if he was evil or mad.

0:47:310:47:34

He was never diagnosed as insane.

0:47:340:47:37

I think Robert Black was most definitely not mad.

0:47:390:47:42

He most definitely was evil. And he had went down the road of evil

0:47:420:47:47

and just gathered evil as he went along.

0:47:470:47:50

And I would have said that he was just 100% evil

0:47:500:47:55

but he certainly wasn't mad.

0:47:550:47:57

I think he was actually quite intelligent, so he was.

0:47:570:48:00

But Black did have what mental health experts viewed

0:48:040:48:08

as a personality disorder, making him devoid of normal emotions.

0:48:080:48:13

Why did he have no conscience?

0:48:150:48:18

Well, the thing about sadomasochistic psychopathology is

0:48:180:48:21

that over time it empties you of the things that make us human,

0:48:210:48:25

because the things that make us human are essentially

0:48:250:48:29

relationships with the outside world,

0:48:290:48:32

relationships with other people, so he was lost.

0:48:320:48:36

His inner world was empty, dystonic,

0:48:360:48:41

bleak...

0:48:410:48:44

disturbingly frightening, overwhelming,

0:48:440:48:49

a sense of massive nothingness, a deadness.

0:48:490:48:56

If you like, what he was trying to escape all the time

0:48:560:49:00

was a sense of deadness that was growing within him.

0:49:000:49:03

'Bill Nicol, whose childhood briefly overlapped with Robert Black's in the Scottish care home,'

0:49:060:49:11

went on to have a distinguished military career.

0:49:110:49:15

Were you surprised, then,

0:49:160:49:17

whenever Black emerged as a serial child killer?

0:49:170:49:21

Did that come as a shock to you?

0:49:210:49:23

Oh, absolutely horrendous shock.

0:49:230:49:27

As I say, it took a while

0:49:270:49:29

for it to register with me that

0:49:290:49:30

it was the person that I could remember.

0:49:300:49:33

I mean, all the photographs that came into the media,

0:49:330:49:36

they did try and portray him as a monster and looking like a monster.

0:49:360:49:40

Black was convicted of four murders,

0:49:420:49:45

but police believe he was responsible for as many as 12 more,

0:49:450:49:50

among them Genette Tate from Devonshire,

0:49:500:49:53

Silke Garben from Germany,

0:49:530:49:56

and Sabine Dumont from Paris,

0:49:560:49:59

and those families never got answers.

0:49:590:50:02

Black died in Maghaberry Prison last month.

0:50:050:50:08

He died, as he lived, alone.

0:50:080:50:12

There was no-one to claim his body.

0:50:120:50:14

He was cremated secretly at Roselawn Cemetery in Belfast,

0:50:150:50:19

outside normal hours.

0:50:190:50:22

His ashes were scattered at sea.

0:50:220:50:24

There were no mourners.

0:50:240:50:26

As a final act of cruelty, Black chose not to reveal

0:50:270:50:31

where he left the bodies of his other victims.

0:50:310:50:34

His secrets died with him.

0:50:360:50:38

This will be on my heart forever.

0:50:420:50:44

I always wanted to talk to Robert Black.

0:50:460:50:52

Can I say that?

0:50:520:50:53

And I wanted to say to him, "Look... You're the same age as me.

0:50:550:51:02

"You've never done anything good with your life.

0:51:020:51:08

"Why can you not do just one thing good,

0:51:080:51:12

"to tell one family where the body of their child is?"

0:51:120:51:16

-Yeah.

-"You know you can do that."

0:51:160:51:18

That's what I would like.

0:51:200:51:22

And I never got the chance.

0:51:220:51:24

The family of the policeman who rescued his six-year-old daughter

0:51:270:51:30

from Robert Black's van continue to count their blessings.

0:51:300:51:34

Because it ended the way it did

0:51:370:51:39

and we actually got our daughter

0:51:390:51:41

back again, we actually look on it

0:51:410:51:43

as good fortune rather than anything else.

0:51:430:51:46

We dinna dwell on it in any way, shape or form.

0:51:460:51:48

So I just sort of spotted it coming back down the drive...

0:51:480:51:51

'Ian Turnbull's daughter has recovered well from her ordeal

0:51:510:51:55

'and has got on with her life. The day we interviewed him'

0:51:550:51:58

he heard the news that she had given birth to a child of her own.

0:51:580:52:02

For the Cardy family, there is a life sentence of grief.

0:52:040:52:08

The place where Jennifer was taken is just a mile from the family home.

0:52:130:52:17

We felt an impact, especially when

0:52:210:52:24

it comes up to things like holiday times and Christmas times, you know,

0:52:240:52:28

of course you felt the loss.

0:52:280:52:31

Sometimes we went on maybe caravan holidays at that stage

0:52:310:52:35

and...and now, the back seat of the car wasn't full.

0:52:350:52:40

There was two in the back seat of the car and not three.

0:52:400:52:43

I remember Jennifer very fondly.

0:52:460:52:47

She was a very caring person and we had our times together,

0:52:470:52:51

you know, bickering of course playing together. We had good times.

0:52:510:52:56

And what sort of games would you play?

0:52:560:52:58

Well, sometimes, there was the wee set,

0:52:580:53:01

and I kept a couple of the wee instruments.

0:53:010:53:05

We played with this here, this is a wee, like a wee village

0:53:050:53:11

-and sometimes we would play...

-Was that yours?

0:53:110:53:14

No, that is actually Jennifer's and I've kept that,

0:53:140:53:17

I've kept that, I never...

0:53:170:53:20

I was never one for, you know, having shrines,

0:53:200:53:23

and none of our family are, but we all have our wee special pieces

0:53:230:53:27

and that's... I've kept that, that's my wee special piece.

0:53:270:53:31

That's your special memory of Jennifer?

0:53:310:53:34

Yes, I have great memories of playing with that with Jennifer.

0:53:340:53:37

Memories of Robert Black still cast a shadow over many lives.

0:53:500:53:54

It's something that I think about quite a lot

0:53:560:54:01

and I travel the A1 carriageway several times in week

0:54:010:54:06

past McKee's Dam, and there's not a time that I don't go past that dam

0:54:060:54:14

when I don't think of Jennifer and her last moments

0:54:140:54:18

and the Cardy family.

0:54:180:54:20

So, yes, it is something that I will take to my grave with me.

0:54:220:54:25

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