Innocents. Jonathan Rose

to support the contention that she would not go off willingly with anybody that she did not know, nor would she get into a stranger’s car. But unpalatable though it may have been, the enquiry had to look at the converse picture: that she had gone, not abducted by a stranger, but willingly with someone she knew, and that included her family. It is an unpleasant but true fact that over ninety per cent of murders in Britain are committed by persons who know the victim. The vast majority of those murders are committed in domestic or family circumstances. With those figures very much in mind, Dibb had little difficulty in ordering that the family would have to be considered, they would have to be eliminated, and this applied even to Lesley’s sister Julie’s former boyfriends and to Danny Molseed’s best friend, John Conroy.

      Officers were allocated to research the family, and Detective Constable Jim Butterworth was appointed family liaison officer. His function, besides attending to the family’s welfare needs, was to obtain intimate details of their daily routines and relationships. The house-to-house team had reported the public face of the family, which portrayed Lesley as a friendly, happy-go-lucky child who came from a stable family background. The picture obtained by the family enquiry team was significantly different.

      Lesley Molseed and her siblings were still, legally, called Anderson, and had assumed the name Molseed only when April began to live with the then-married Danny Molseed. The four children were the issue of April’s marriage to Frederick Anderson, a marriage which was celebrated in Anderson’s home town of Glasgow on 10 October 1958. Julie Jane Anderson was their first child, born on 2 July 1959. Next came Laura Agnes in December 1961, Frederick Augustin in August 1963, and Lesley herself on 7 August 1964.

      Lesley had been born with a heart condition which caused her to be a weak and frail baby, who, at the age of 3, required an emergency pulmonary valvotomy operation. The Anderson family lived in the Springburn area of Glasgow, despite April being a Londoner by birth. Life in the household was far from tranquil. Frederick Anderson, six years older than his wife, was an acknowledged ‘man’s man’, who did not adjust well to the role of being a father. The constant crying and demands of four children, and the extra attention required by Lesley caused friction, which invariably resulted in him storming out of the house in a temper.

      In a not-atypical fashion, April, lacking the support of her husband, found both care and succour from another man, 31-year-old Danny Molseed, whom she had met in 1965. As their relationship developed, April was pleasantly surprised to find that Danny not only paid her unaccustomed attention, but that he also had a genuinely caring attitude towards the children, and in particular to Lesley. For April, life with Anderson continued to deteriorate whilst her relationship with Danny Molseed intensified, so much so that, in February 1966, when Frederick Anderson went on a government training course in Gloucester, April and Danny took Lesley and her brother Freddie and ran to Rochdale. Julie and Laura were left in Glasgow with their paternal grandparents. When Anderson returned to Glasgow to find his family disintegrated, he travelled to Rochdale in an attempt to effect a reconciliation. This failed, and he went back to Glasgow where he placed his two daughters in local authority care. This did not prevent him periodically visiting April to make further attempts to patch up their still-extant marriage, and in 1967 he took employment at Carrier Brothers in Rochdale and moved to the area, thus being able to be near to April and to Lesley and Freddie.

      Whether the presence of Anderson caused April to become unsettled, she became unsure of her relationship with Danny Molseed and, in due course, she moved out of the flat she shared with Danny and set up home at 11 Delamere Road with her husband and their four children.

      Unfortunately, April was pregnant with Danny’s child, and even though Anderson believed there was a chance that the child was his he insisted that it be adopted, a course which was followed when a boy was born in May 1967. The relationship with Frederick began to break down again within five weeks of their reunion, and all attempts at reconciliation eventually failed when April was admitted to Birch Hill Hospital for psychiatric treatment. On her release, Danny moved into the house to look after her, and as the tenancy was in April’s name Anderson had little choice but to move out, although he was to remain in touch with the children. This caused an unsettled environment, especially for Lesley and Freddie. Anderson responded to this by restricting his contact with the two older girls. Julie, Anderson’s favourite, did not like living with Danny Molseed. It mattered little for Lesley: she had had little contact with Anderson and had come to regard Danny as her natural father. He had seen her in hospital immediately after her operation and had adopted a protective and fatherly stance towards her. April later said she believed it was Danny Molseed’s paternal affection towards Lesley which motivated him to live with her.

      Lesley’s condition required ongoing treatment, and she was under the continuing care of Dr Watson, a consultant paediatrician at the Royal Manchester Hospital. At her last appointment in July 1975 she complained of feeling tired, and the doctor felt that this was due to a narrowing of the heart valves. But he decided the repair could be held in abeyance until she was older. Lesley had a particular syndrome which gave her an ‘elfin-like’ appearance, particularly facially, and a pleasant and very friendly disposition. She had a low IQ and attended High Birch Special School, for educationally disadvantaged children. There, despite her physical deficiencies, she took part in all normal recreational activities, including games, PE and swimming. At home she was equally active, regularly playing in the street with other children and attending the local youth club held in Kingsway School. Lesley Molseed had inadequacies, both physical and mental, but she quietly and without bother or drama dealt with them with the assistance of her family. In every other respect she was as a normal child: enjoying her schoolwork, enjoying her play, enjoying her innocence in the summer of 1975.

      April and Frederick Anderson had finally divorced in September 1972, but April did not marry Danny until February 1975, an event which caused some surprise in the Turf Hill community, who believed them to be already man and wife. Despite the marriage, tension and turmoil remained substantial features of the family’s life, particularly between Danny and Julie. Theirs was a relationship built on mutual dislike, particularly when, as he often did, Danny would express his disapproval of Julie’s boyfriends. Domestic circumstances deteriorated still further as both parents became heavy drinkers, alcohol being the mainstay of their social life, and further disharmony was inevitable when April, unable to derive sufficient comfort and love from Danny, began to seek the attentions of other men. The family was distant from other relatives and April made only occasional visits to her brother in London when circumstances in the family home became unbearable.

      By 1974 the home was in turmoil. Danny had lost his job, the family was heavily in debt and rent arrears were beginning to mount up. As a result of allegations made by various neighbours about the welfare of the children, the social services visited the family, on one occasion finding Lesley and Freddie in the care of their 12-year-old sister Laura while Danny and April were in the pub. Julie had moved out to live with Fred Anderson. She had run away from home, and when interviewed by the police it became clear that she was petrified to return home. She cited violent arguments with Danny over her boyfriends as the reason for her running away.

      Danny Molseed was not to find employment until November 1974, a job he was still holding at the time of Lesley’s disappearance. Even this work, however, and the assistance of welfare agencies with financial help, did not alter their state of indebtedness. It appears to have been common knowledge that the Molseeds were in debt, so much so that Brent Davies, who had a bread round on the estate, refused to give April Molseed a loaf of bread ‘on tick’ on the Saturday afternoon preceding Lesley’s disappearance, because he was owed money by her. Davies would later blame himself for Lesley’s death, for it was his refusal that necessitated April sending Lesley to the shops on the Sunday.

      Given the volatile relationship in the household, the assertions by Julie of Danny’s temper, and the depth of affection which he had for Lesley, DCS Dibb considered it essential to add Danny Molseed’s name to the ever-growing list of persons to be considered and eliminated. Dibb also ordered all of Lesley’s clothing to be taken for forensic examination, to eliminate any question of previous sexual abuse on her.

      By the end of October 1975 Dibb had so much, and so little. He had dozens of vehicles, cars and vans, hundreds of statements of sightings, movements, actions and circumstances,