'˜Robert Black' could happen again, says Ulster author

Robert Giles, a criminology graduate and first-time author from near Ballygawley, has almost finished a book co-authored with former Norfolk Constabulary Intelligence Officer Chris Clark, called ‘Robert Black and the Cycle of Opportunity’.

The book is currently with a publisher and will now be updated in light of Black’s death on Tuesday in Maghaberry prison. He was convicted of murdering four children from across the UK in the 1980s, one of whom was Jennifer Cardy, nine, of Co Antrim.

“My co-author Chris Clark’s own wife Jean, then aged 15, believes she narrowly escaped Black’s clutches when she was out riding her bike in the summer of 1971,” Mr Giles said.

“She had been at an open air swimming pool in Cambridgeshire and was cycling home on a country road. She became aware that a blue van was following her and then overtook her and stopped.

“The driver got out and was staring at her and her legs. She was 15 but looked a lot younger so she immediately sensed the danger and cycled as fast as she could to a nearby house. She didn’t know whose it was but she pretended it was hers and went straight in and asked for help.”

She later saw a photo of Black in his late teens or early 20s and was sure it was him, he added. Black had been working in the area at the time.

Hearing stories about Black when he was younger prompted Mr Giles to study criminology at the Ulster University.

“I feel he is a very strong suspect for other unsolved murders of young girls in the UK and in mainlaind Europe.”

A clue that would link him to unsolved cases was that he would often leave his victims unconscious to drown.

A key factor that helped shape Black, he says, was a disturbed childhood. His 16-year-old mother did not want him and physically abusive foster parents died when he was 11. He then went through a number of children’s homes, where a male member of staff sexually abused him. His sexual offending began to emerge in his late teens.

Mr Giles believes he should have been stopped earlier, rather than getting off with a mere admonishment for sexually abusing and almost killing a seven-year-old girl in Scotland in his youth.

“It is difficult to say if lessons have been learned. Could it happen again? Sadly, yes. The key to him escaping justice for so long was the fallibility of human intelligence gathering.”