Innocents. Jonathan Rose

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