Monster disowned
Inquest to go ahead without relatives
A FAILURE to trace any relatives of child serial killer Robert Black may see his inquest proceed without his family there, a coroner has said.
Nine months of efforts by the Coroner Service for Northern Ireland to find relations of the late Scottish paedophile have come to nothing, coroner Patrick McGurgan was told on Friday.
Black, who was convicted of four child murders but suspected of many more, died of heart disease in a Northern Ireland prison in 2016, aged 68.
The Grangemouth killer was a delivery driver who stalked the roads of the UK searching for victims.
Black was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea after prison authorities in Northern Ireland revealed no one wanted his remains.
An inquest is being held into his death to establish if there were any issues with the medical care he received while incarcerated.
At a preliminary hearing in Belfast, a lawyer for the Coroners Service updated McGurgan on efforts to find any relations. He said: “Efforts are being made by an investigating officer but they can’t be traced. There’s not much more that can be done it seems.”
It was initially believed some of Black’s relations might live in Northern Ireland. BY DAVID YOUNG reporters@dailyrecord.co.uk Noting previous media coverage of efforts to locate the family members, the coroner said issuing a formal public appeal could be an option. He said: “We’d all like next of kin to be involved in this inquest –it’s very important.”
Addressing legal representatives involved in the case, the coroner added: “Are we content we could proceed in the absence of next of kin?” He added it was “not unheard of ”.
One of the lawyers agreed, adding that he had been involved in an inquest without family participation.
The killer’s reign of terror was ended in 1990 when he was caught with a barely alive six-year-old girl in the back of his van in Stow, near Galashiels. Once in custody, the predator was linked to a series of unsolved crimes. In 1994, Black was found guilty of three child murders in the 1980s, those of 11-year-old Susan Maxwell, from the Borders, five-year-old Caroline Hogg, from Edinburgh, and Sarah Harper, 10, from Morley, near Leeds, as well as a failed abduction in Nottingham in 1988.
In 2011, he was found guilty of the 1981 murder of Jennifer Cardy, nine, of Ballinderry, Co Antrim.
The inquest into Black’s death will start on Monday December 3 in Armagh.