Innocents. Jonathan Rose

lesser sum with her usual impish grin. And then she was gone.

      It was 1 p.m.

      This was an era, after John Kilbride, after Lesley-Ann Downey, after Pauline Read, after Keith Bennett, when parents sent their children out to play alone, without fear.

      Dinner-time passed, with no bread on the table and no Lesley at the table. Sister Laura is sent out to look for her: traces her likely routes along Delamere Road and Birkdale Road, crossing Turf Hill Road and into Ansdell Road. Lesley is not at Ryders corner shop, nor at the Spar shop, nor is she at Margaret’s, the sweet shop on Broad Lane. Laura returns home. Brother Freddie joins the search, and when the two children can still find no trace of their sister, nor even anyone who has seen her, Freddie is sent to get Danny.

      This was an era, before Susan Maxwell, before Caroline Hogg, before Sarah Harper, when mothers sent their children to corner shops, without concern.

      Freddie finds Danny, his day’s work as a maintenance electrician at an end, in the Plough public house, playing darts. The game is abandoned. Lesley is still not home, she has been gone for one and a half hours.

      It had taken a far shorter time for Lesley to disappear. She had found Ryders closed, and had cut along a narrow dirt-path between Buersil Avenue and Ansdell Road, her navy-blue canvas shopping bag with the yellow Tweety Pie motif hanging from her bone-thin arm. She wore a blue coat with a white synthetic fur-lined hood, which she pulled over her head. Underneath, a blue woollen jumper, a red and white T-shirt, a pink skirt and brown shoes, and those blue and white hooped and tartan socks, emblazoned with the name of her heroes, the Bay City Rollers. She was heading for the Spar shop on Ansdell Road, but she never arrived there.

      It must have taken only seconds for Lesley to cross the short pathway, but in the few strides between Ryders and the Spar she was intercepted. Lesley Molseed was a quiet, shy and home-loving girl, well-disciplined by her parents not to talk to strangers. It was also true that Lesley was both vulnerable and suggestible. Robert Whittaker, Lesley’s teacher at High Birch School was later to give his assessment of her mental age as being ‘about 6’, and he was to add his ominous opinion that ‘She would have gone off with someone if they had approached her in the manner that suited her.’ So what alluring bait was used by the man who took her? Did he tempt the child with sweets, or with the promise that he could help her find the missing Jinxy?

      Of this Danny Molseed was then, of course, unaware. Alerted to Lesley’s out-of-character disappearance he is swiftly out of the house again, searching. April Molseed had at first been vexed that her youngest child had ignored her directive to return quickly from the simple errand. Then, as the minutes passed, she grew ever more fretful for the girl’s safety. By the time an hour had passed, her anxiety had become feverish, so that Danny’s eventual return was to a woman verging on panic.

      Danny Molseed was determined to bring Lesley home. In his own mind, indignation dominated. Unable to conceive that harm would come to her, he walked the route she had earlier taken. Surely she had become distracted, seen a friend, stopped to play, seen a cat and thought that it was Jinxy, and followed it away. He passed Ryders and turned on to the dirt path. Walking firmly, but unhurriedly, he paced towards Ansdell Road, calling her name, ever more strongly. As the ideas in his mind revolved to thoughts more sinister, to fears more real, the steps became shorter and the voice became a shout, until he was running running running, shouting Lesley Lesley LESLEY. In to every house along the lane, he demanded ‘Have you seen her?’ ‘Is she here?’ ‘Did she go past?’ ‘A little girl in a raincoat?’ but there was no reply to help him. At the end of the path he was greeted by an empty Ansdell Road: there was no sign of her.

      Phone calls to the police brought an immediate response but no results. Julie Molseed, Lesley’s older sister, came to the family home which she herself had left some eight months earlier, to live with her natural father after friction had developed between her, April and Danny. Now she was pregnant by her boyfriend James Hind, and they were planning to return to the Turf Hill Estate. The family gathered round in a show of collective security, collective strength, collective fear.

      Danny ventured out again, believing that he and only he would find this child and bring her safely home. By daylight and by night he searched, alone or with others. No anxious father could have done more, still thinking first ‘I’ll tan her hide when I get her home’ and then, ‘Dear God let her be safe.’

      The police search extended across the estate and the surrounding area. Photographs of the missing child were shown, and residents and passers-by were questioned. At the same time, news of the little girl’s disappearance spread, along with tales of suspicious men in vans and cars loitering where local children met and played, trying to entice them into their vehicles.

      As the police searched and Danny searched, small armies of neighbours and friends formed to play their own part, a spontaneous gathering of volunteers taking to the streets, with fear for the child and empathy for the family their only motivations. The armies became swollen, until scores of people were engaged in the chaotic and frantic covering of the streets and snickets.

      A cluster of sightings was reported. Once those obviously not of Lesley were discounted, attention turned to the more likely reports. Julie Molseed ignored her heavily pregnant state to join her boyfriend and their friends in scouring the streets. Two of those friends, Steven Scowcroft and Brian Statham used their motorbikes to add speed and efficiency to the search.

      At 8.30 p.m. Julie returned to her mother’s home to telephone her father, Frederick Anderson, to break the news of Lesley’s disappearance, and to assure him that she would keep him informed. Then Julie stepped back, whilst police officers spoke to April with delicacy and tact, prying into the family’s background, squeezing out details of the missing child’s character, habits and behaviour. Who were her friends? Where might she go? Was there any reason they could think of why Lesley might not return.

      The police instituted a discreet search of the house, to ensure that the child was not, somehow, hidden there. It would not be the first time that a report had been made of a missing child, when in truth the child was trapped, hidden or even killed within the home, and the body secreted there. April confirmed that Lesley had not taken a change of clothing with her, and thus provided a complete answer to any suggestion that the little girl’s failure to return was voluntary.

      By 10 p.m. there was widespread and serious concern. The police officers’ street searches had now condensed into house-to-house enquiries, looking for the child, looking for clues, looking for answers. At 11 p.m. the police called on John Conroy, Danny Molseed’s best friend, at his home on Neston Road. Alerted of Lesley’s disappearance, Conroy and his wife went immediately to their friends, where they joined a further search party of friends and neighbours which remained out on the streets until 4 a.m. the following day.

      The night slowly passes. The younger children are put to bed, unaware of high drama and mounting fear. But there is no sleep for the parents, their minds filled with thoughts of Lesley, and of how she could never cope with being away from her family all night. She would certainly be unable to spend a night outdoors. Each tries to comfort the other, but true optimism is in short supply. Sunday runs into Monday.

      At dawn, the police resume their searches, governed by routines honed by experience, experience which usually brings results. They are joined by community members who do not have to work that day, and even some who have elected not to go to work so that they can assist. The search is extended beyond the strict limits of the estate, to wasteland and farmland which border it, and to abandoned freezers and fridges where a body might be hidden. That evening, the expertise of the local youth was brought to bear, when club leader Dennis Wilkinson asked the youths to search those – mainly secluded – areas where they might sometimes go, including Kays Field, derelict houses and garages of the Deeplish and Ashfield Valley areas, and numerous hidden spots where young people wanting privacy would sometimes disappear. This fruitless search continued until 2 a.m. the following day.

      The estate rumour machine continued to grind out its seemingly endless ribbon of tales, of men in vehicles on the estate trying to entice young children into their cars, of indecent exposure and of attacks on lone women. These tales, inevitable consequences of a crisis