Innocents - Jonathan Rose

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with comfort and sympathy and warmth from everyone they had come in contact with since Lesley’s disappearance, save for one man. Inexplicably, when she came to gaze at the tiny coffin, April’s thoughts went to that man. He had appeared at the Molseeds’ door the day after April had identified Lesley’s body. He was from the Department of Health and Social Security he explained, and whilst he apologised for intruding at a time of such grief, he wanted to collect Lesley’s family allowance coupons. It was dutiful callousness, April had thought at the time. They have to make sure we don’t steal their precious money, for a child on whom no further money will be spent. Why should she have to think of such things at this time?

      The dozing Tiger was ushered off the coffin. Behind April was her previous husband Fred Anderson alongside Lesley’s uncle, Bobby Garrett, who in turn comforted 12-year-old Freddie, the brother who had missed his turn on the chores duty rota that Sunday afternoon. Reverend Ramage recited the Lord’s Prayer, then each member of the family laid a rose on the coffin.

      Outside, the October garden was in full bloom, an appearance created by the plethora of wreaths, bouquets and single flowers which had been laid by Lesley’s classmates at High Birch School, by friends, by family, by strangers, by the anonymous who felt the Molseeds’ grief as if they themselves had borne the child. A solitary policeman guarded the sea of floral tributes. The curtains were drawn in every house in the street, a sign of respect which mirrored the drawn curtains of April’s house. Behind those curtains Lesley’s family enjoyed a last moment of privacy, on what was to be a day of grief shared by the whole town of Rochdale. Newspaper reporters and photographers had encamped on the opposite side of Delamere Road, separate huddles indicating separate newspapers, each anxious to secure both written and photographic memories of the day. Child murders remained mercifully rare, and it was because of that very scarcity that newspaper sales were increased when they occurred. Every reader, in Rochdale and in England, would feel in their heart for the pain of the Molseeds.

      One evening newspaper reporter, anxious about his early deadline, had pre-penned the opening paragraphs of his story, anticipating the scene now unfolding. He had written: ‘Murdered schoolgirl Lesley Molseed was carried from her home in a coffin today followed by her weeping mother.’ But he was obliged to make a hasty change. April Molseed was not weeping. She had not wept since the day she had identified her daughter’s body. No one could understand how that could be, but it is impossible for anyone who had not walked in April’s shoes to know of the utter desolation and emptiness that pervaded her existence.

      Lesley’s small coffin, its size emphasising the cruelty of a young life cut short, was carried past the floral tributes lying either side of the garden path. Little Lel had been for a ride in a car on Sunday, 5 October 1975. Today she would take another ride. The coffin was slid into the back of the hearse, and Lesley Molseed’s final journey began.

      The cortège travelled slowly along roads lined by men and women, boys and girls. Rochdale does not hold many claims to fame. Gracie Fields, the entertainer and Cyril Smith, the outsize politician, had been the most famous of the town’s sons and daughters. Now those names were joined by Lesley Molseed. Schoolchildren downed pens and rulers, and were allowed to stand in silence by the kerbside as Lesley went by. Workers downed tools, and men doffed caps in the traditional manner. The conscience of an entire town was on grim display, with its community refusing to admit out loud that a savage child killer was probably within its midst.

      They sang Lesley’s favourite hymn, ‘Morning Has Broken’ at Trinity Church, in a service relayed by tannoy to the crowd outside. Reverend Ramage recalled the words of Jesus: ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’ Julie Molseed, deeply emotional, felt anger welling inside her and wondered what sort of God would let her sister die so terribly. How could He let such good be killed this way? How could He let her killer continue with his evil and worthless life, when Lesley, who had endured so much in her life, was buried in a wooden casket?

      Lesley was laid to rest, in the shade of the trees with the wild rabbits waiting to play, wearing a party dress and coffee-coloured coat with fluffy-edged cuffs and hood. Around her neck was a gold love-heart which Julie had given to the undertaker. On her finger was April’s favourite dress ring which Lesley had always admired, hoping one day that she might wear it when she became a young womán. As the coffin was lowered into the ground, April stood with head bowed and eyes dry, her right hand clutching soil, which she slowly sprinkled after the daughter whose strong will to live had been so callously crushed on a carpet of moorland heather. Some days later, April told her local newspaper: ‘No one knows until they have stood by their child’s grave, how far down six feet seems.’

      In the days following the revelation of Lesley’s disappearance and death, Rochdale’s, and in particular the Turf Hill Estate’s, community moved towards the spirit which had in days gone by encapsulated the essence of a hundred English industrial towns. Immediate neighbours had sought to offer condolence and, if possible assistance to the grieving family, while together they and those more geographically distant had applied their minds and hearts to aiding the police in solving this horrendous crime. The feelings and emotions of Rochdale’s citizens had swollen and grown as the days passed leading to the funeral of the child. Then came change. It was as if the community had done its best to render service to the family and to the police. Now that they could do no more, they settled back into their everyday existences. They retained an avid interest in any development in the case, and would frequently enquire of investigating officers whether any progress had been made, but with the passage of time came a relaxation of the fears which had guided their daily lives in the immediate aftermath of the murder.

      At first the residents of the Turf Hill Estate protected their children with a passion. Children were escorted to and from school, and were forbidden to play on the streets. For a while, vigilante patrols roamed the streets in darkness. But then, perhaps inevitably, time passed, emotions subsided and guards were dropped …

      Friday, 7 November 1975, a little over a month since the child’s terrible passing. A white cross adorned her grave, and the photograph of April and Danny Molseed standing, heads bowed, adjacent to that grave soon adorned the pages of the local papers. It was published in accordance with the express wishes of April Molseed. Although only weeks had passed since her daughter’s abduction and murder, Mrs Molseed wondered at the attitudes of parents living nearby. Their children had returned to playing outside in the dark, wintry streets, alone and without any parental supervision. Lesley’s death appeared to have been forgotten. Mrs Molseed described the story of her daughter’s tragic death as being ‘a ten-day wonder’, as she declaimed, ‘I’m afraid [the children’s] mothers don’t understand it could happen to them,’ and she had said that the graveside photograph should be published ‘to show mothers it can and could happen to them’.

       Of Sugar and Spice

      As 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.

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