Jonathan Rose - Innocents

The estate rumour machine continued to grind out its seemingly endless ribbon of tales, of men in vehicles on the estate trying to entice young children into their cars, of indecent exposure and of attacks on lone women. These tales, inevitable consequences of a crisis in such a close-knit community, served only to heighten the fears of the Molseed family. And as the tales spread, so did the fear, so that other families watched their children with more than usual care, and an orchestrated curfew was imposed on local children. The searchers, whilst concentrating on their primary task of finding the child, now looked equally for the suspicious or out-of-the-ordinary. Find Lesley; protect the children. These were the priorities under which the Turf Hill Estate was now operating.

Day three: no sign, no word, and it is hard, even for optimists, to believe. All but the occupants of Delamere Road have given up hope. ‘Any news?’ the neighbours ask, or turn their heads to avoid having to frame that question, hear the reply, see the shaking head, notice the tired face and ragged looks that speak the words that no one dares to say.

Fred Anderson had arrived at the Delamere Road house on Monday morning, and he and April were to remain there throughout, neither wanting to take the chance of missing some news. Each member of the household is eager to reassure the others, but the ticking of the clock accompanies the growing fear that, unbelievably, this tiny child may not be seen again. That thought remains unspoken, but by Tuesday night such optimism as had once existed is strained to its limits.

Inevitably, the police operation was starting to wind down, although a police officer remained with the family throughout. The search was being downscaled, as all possible locations had been covered, every street searched, every house visited. The mobile loudspeakers stopped blaring Lesley’s description, and the enquiry incident room was moved to Rochdale Police Station, away from the immediate vicinity of the estate. The incident room’s role as the centre of a missing person enquiry was gradually being changed in anticipation of it being needed for an enquiry of a different kind.

Incredibly, Danny Molseed still walks and searches and asks. But as Tuesday reaches midnight, he and the neighbours and friends who have walked, unstintingly, since Sunday, looking for new areas to search, new stones to turn, come together and agree to meet the following morning to regroup and resume. With the thanks of the Molseed family in their ears and their hearts, they head off for much needed sleep.

That sleep remained in short supply for Lesley’s family. The strain at last told on Julie, and problems developed with her pregnancy which required immediate hospital attention, but by Wednesday morning she was ignoring medical advice, and returned to be with her family once more. She telephoned Fred Anderson to come and collect her, and for a brief moment, the family rejoiced that the baby was well. It was Wednesday, 8 October 1975.

As dawn broke over Rishworth Moor, David Greenwell stirred from sleep and threw open the rear doors of his yellow 1965 BMC Mini van, which was parked in a lay-by off the A672 Oldham to Halifax Road at Ripponden, West Yorkshire. A night’s sleep behind him and the early morning urge to relieve himself caused him to scramble upwards until the land became flat, changing from craggy hillside to moor.

Who was this man, who had spent the night sleeping in a lay-by? Why did he look up into the bleakness? What was it that first caught his eye, to draw it to the terrace twenty-five feet above his head, to see the folds of a blue raincoat, flapping in the air currents and swirling winds which never seem to abate across this grassy embankment.

David Arthur Greenwell, a joiner by trade, was at this time working for a firm of Birmingham shopfitters who were engaged in a jewellery shop refit in Rochdale. It was simply too far for him to travel daily from his Nottingham home, and, although he was paid an allowance to cover overnight expenses, Greenwell’s tiny van sometimes became his home-away-from-home, with sleeping bag and mattress, kettle and primus stove, cup and plate. But no toilet.

And so at around six forty-five, rising to wash and cook breakfast, he first scurried upwards to find a secluded spot, where he could not be seen. After his task was completed, he turned and made his way back down the moorside. The wisp of cloth that had caught his eye on the ascent could be seen again as he headed back to his van, but this time he looked a little closer. The wisp then seemed part of a bundle of clothes. He took another pace towards it, then reeled backwards at the sight of what was clearly human flesh. The body of a child, of a little girl, face down on the grass. Still fully clothed, the Bay City Rollers socks visible, the blue canvas bag revealing the incomplete errand that had set her on the route which brought her here. But the trappings of childhood innocence were obscured by the obvious and appalling injuries, the bruising and the stab-wounds, and by the terrible stillness of the child, from whom all life had now departed.

For a moment only, he stood, transfixed, somehow unable to absorb the enormity of this sight. Then, slowly, he began to recall news reports over the previous weekend of a young girl missing from the Rochdale area, and that recollection sent him running to his van. The wash could wait, the breakfast was abandoned as shock turned to panic. He hurriedly drove to his work site and told his foreman, Michael McClean, and fellow employees of his grim discovery, and they in turn advised him that he must report the finding to the police.

Within the hour the grisly find had been reported at Rochdale Central Police Station to the desk officer, Constable Michael Roberts. The duty detective from Rochdale criminal investigations department required Greenwell to repeat his story, as he would be asked to repeat the story many times over the next few days.

Then DC Roberts asked Greenwell to accompany him back to the scene, to retrace his steps. Once more the Nottinghamshire shopfitter embarked on the climb up the moorside, this time with far more trepidation, followed by the officer. Did Greenwell hope that the body would have gone? That he had imagined it? That the nightmare would then be over? Had he yet realised that he would not be allowed simply to carry on with the day’s work, before returning to the lay-by to sleep again that night? Could he comprehend that he was already being ear-marked, not merely as a witness, but as a suspect, a position he would have to hold until he could be, in the jargon, eliminated from police enquiries?

It was a matter of moments before he and the detective stood within sight of the child. Neither approached the body, it was obvious that the child was dead, and it was equally obvious to Roberts, who by this time had engraved on his mind the description of the frail 11-year-old child who had been missing since Sunday, 5 October, that he had found the body of Lesley Susan Molseed. The ‘child missing from home’ investigation had become a murder enquiry.

In April 1974 a major restructuring of the British police service had reduced the 115 county, city and borough forces to fifty-one larger forces covering England, Scotland and Wales. The series of amalgamations which took place created Greater Manchester police and West Yorkshire Metropolitan police as two of the largest police forces in the country. Rishworth Moor, remote and desolate, was situated between the Halifax and Huddersfield divisions of the West Yorkshire force, although it also bordered the Rochdale division of the Greater Manchester police area.

A radio message from Roberts’ police car to senior officers at Rochdale was quickly relayed on to West Yorkshire police, on whose ground Lesley had been found. West Yorkshire officers were immediately dispatched to the location, and by 9 a.m. Detective Chief Inspector Richard (Dick) Holland of Halifax division, and Detective Chief Inspector John Stainthorpe of Huddersfield division were at the scene, trying to determine on whose ‘patch’ the body lay.