Attempt to find child killer Black’s relatives fails
A BID to trace any family members of child serial killer Robert Black may see his inquest proceed without the participation of relatives, a coroner has said.
Nine months of efforts by the Coroners Service to find relations of the notorious Scottish paedophile have come to nothing, coroner Patrick McGurgan was told yesterday.
Black was convicted of four child murders, including that of Co Antrim girl Jennifer Cardy.
He died of heart disease in Maghaberry jail in 2016 aged 68.
But the loner from Grangem- outh near Falkirk, a delivery driver who stalked the roads of the UK for his victims, was suspected of many more killings.
He was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea after no one claimed his remains.
An inquest is being held to establish if there were issues with his medical care in prison.
At a preliminary hearing in Belfast, a lawyer for the Coroners Service updated Mr McGurgan on efforts to find any relations to participate in the inquest.
“Efforts are being made by an investigating officer but they can’t be traced,” he said. “There’s not much more that can be done, it seems.”
It was initially believed that some of Black’s relations might live in Northern Ireland.
Noting previous media coverage of efforts to locate the family members, the coroner said issuing a formal public appeal could be an option.
“We would all like next of kin to be involved in this inquest, I think it’s very important,” he said.
Addressing legal representatives in the case, the coroner added: “Are we content that we could proceed in the absence of next of kin? It’s not unheard of.”
One lawyer agreed that such a move was not without precedent and highlighted that he was involved in an inquest without family participation recently.
Mr McGurgan said the absence of a relative at the full hearing in December might make it difficult to officially record some personal details about Black.
The killer’s long reign of terror was ended in 1990 when he was caught red-handed by police with a barely alive six-yearold girl who was hooded, bound, gagged and stuffed in a sleeping bag in the back of his van in the Scottish village of Stow.
He had sexually assaulted her moments earlier.
Once in custody, the predator was linked to a series of unsolved crimes in the previous decade.
In 1994, Black was found guilty of three child murders in the Eighties, those of Susan Max- well (11), from the Scottish Borders; Caroline Hogg (5), from Edinburgh, and Sarah Harper (10), from Leeds, as well as a failed abduction bid in Nottingham in 1988. In 2011 he was found guilty of the 1981 murder of Ballinderry girl Jennifer Cardy (9).
Black was fostered as a baby in 1947. A couple from Kinlochleven in the West Highlands who took him in both died within 11 years and Black spent the rest of his childhood in residential homes in Falkirk and Edinburgh.
The full inquest into Black’s death is scheduled to start on Monday, December 3 in Armagh.
Another preliminary hearing will take place on November 5.