Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
ALWAYS IN OUR HEARTS Mum Georgina leads memorial event
Teenager heard about devastation when a youngster is murdered
An emotional tribute has been paid to Alesha MacPhail ahead of what would have been the little girl’s eighth birthday. Balloons honouring Alesha’s memory were set off in Airdrie’s West End Park. Sunday’s event was organised by Alesha’s mum Georgina Lochrane, with family and friends supporting her plea to bring pink balloons and candles and join her in remembering “our very own star in the sky”. Georgina said she would sing Happy Birthday at her daughter’s grave on Tuesday, adding: “Alesha really should be here to celebrate her birthday, not having a vigil in her memory.” Meanwhile, it’s been revealed evil Aaron Campbell received a school talk about the loss of a child by the founder of the Moira Anderson Foundation three years before he murdered Alesha. Sandra Brown, left, was “shocked”after discovering her chance encounter with killer Campbell.
The twisted teenager who murdered Alesha MacPhail was given a school talk about the loss of a child by the founder of the Moira Anderson Foundation.
Just three years before vile Aaron Campbell, now 17, took six- yearold Alesha from her bed and later abandoned her body in a wood, he was part of an audience of pupils addressed by Sandra Brown.
Sandra, who launched the Moira Anderson Foundation in 2000 to support families affected by child sexual abuse because of the impact Coatbridge schoolgirl Moira’s 1957 disappearance had on the community, has shared how she was chilled to the bone after discovering her chance encounter with killer Campbell.
During the summer of 2015, Sandra told an assembly of youngsters at Rothesay Academy on the Isle of Bute, where Alesha was murdered, about her memories of Moira’s disappearance.
Sandra revealed: “I was shocked last year when I discovered that, in the hall that day, was Aaron Campbell, who would only have been around 13.
“How anyone so young could hear about the heartbreak sexual predators can cause and the devastation for families left without their child, then go out and do what he did, is utterly incomprehensible.”
The Moira Anderson Foundation, which marks its 20th anniversary in February, has supported more than 3600 people referred to it and developed educational packages for schools.
Further reflecting on the school talk attended by Campbell, Sandra said: “I wanted to ensure all the children present heard about the services we provide and I also described to them the dreadful impact on a community when a child disappears.
“Moira’s parents, I told them, were the ones who served the life sentence and not my father who was responsible for her abduction, and, I believe, her murder.
“I can still feel the shocked silence in that hall.
“But it was my turn to be shocked when I learned that Campbell had been there.”
Last month, the teenage murderer had his 27-year minimum sentence reduced by three years on appeal after arguing the term was excessive in light of his age.
But Campbell will still serve the longest term of detention imposed on a juvenile offender in Scotland.
Moira Anderson’s disappearance had a profound effect on Sandra; unknown to her at the time, her own dad, bus