Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BID TO FIND BEAST BLACK NEXT OF KIN
Family search for child murderer’s inquest
A CORONER is seeking to trace relatives of serial killer Robert Black to establish if they want to attend his inquest.
The loner paedophile, who was convicted of four child murders but suspected of many more, died of heart disease in Maghaberry Prison, Co Antrim, in 2016.
The 68-year-old, originally from Falkirk in Scotland, was a delivery driver who stalked the roads of the UK searching for victims.
At a preliminary hearing in Belfast ahead of his inquest later this year, Coroner Patrick Mcgurgan said relatives should be offered the chance to give evidence.
He said: “I think all efforts need to be made to trace the next of kin.”
A Coroners Service lawyer said he believed some relations may live in Northern Ireland.
Mr Mcgurgan suggested lawyers who represented Black in trials prior to his death might be able to help trace relatives.
He said: “I think it’s important the family are given every opportunity to participate fully in this inquest.”
Black was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea after prison authorities in Northern Ireland revealed no one wanted his remains.
The killer’s long reign of terror was ended in 1990 when he was caught redhanded by police with a barely alive sixyear-old girl 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 1980s – those of 11-year-old Susan Maxwell, from the Scottish Borders, five-year-old Caroline Hogg, from Edinburgh, and Sarah Harper, 10, from Morley, near Leeds – as well as a failed abduction bid in Nottingham in 1988.
In 2011, he was found guilty of the 1981 murder of nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy, from Ballinderry, Co Antrim.
Black was also suspected of involvement in other killings and unexplained disappearances and had long been the prime suspect in the case of missing Genette Tate, 13, who was last seen in a rural lane in Aylesbeare, Devon, in 1978.