Lest we forget … a farewell to Bob Spiers, the cop who found Leslie Anne Downey’s body

Bob Spiers was an old-fashioned kind of man. Big, bluff and tough.

He had to be, he lived on the streets of Garstang in Lancashire as a beat bobbie.

But at one time people felt that Bob had a ‘spiritual awareness’ about one of the worst series of crimes in the North of England, the Moors Murders.

Certainly it was his dogged determination and single-mindedness that led him to the discovery of Lesley Ann Downey’s body in the rain-soaked peat of the Moors overlooking Saddleworth.

It was a major breakthrough.

Yet, Bob became a bit of ‘forgotten hero’ in his later life. Not forgotten on the streets where he patrolled – but forgotten to the rest of the world.

When he died late last September he warranted barely a mention in the media, only the Garstang newspapers gave him a few paragraphs.

So, I thought we should remember Bob here.

He had only been a police officer for a month and was apparently a bit of an annoyance to his colleagues.

Bob, who was 23 at the time, was up on Saddleworth Moor and was refusing to come down. His colleagues were waiting in vans in the drizzle and were ready to go home.

They’d spent three days on the moors looking for John Kilbride. Bob shouted to them that he was busy ‘answering a call of nature’.

He told reporters many years ago: “It sounds daft but something was drawing me up there. I don’t know why. Why did I go right the way up there? Those moors had been searched the previous day and the day before that. I don’t know what made me stay but something did. Eventually, the sergeant came first and the others followed.

“I said I’ve found something, but nobody wanted to know,” he recalled. “The DS said it was probably a sheep. I said: ‘If that’s a sheep it’s wearing clothes.”

Bob had found a heap of wet clothes.

“Had we not found her then that was it and the search was off. We wouldn’t have found John Kilbride a few days later.”

Bob Spiers was a well-known officer in Garstang. Sadly, he collapsed in the town centre a few weeks ago.

Paramedics and police tried to revive him.

His son Scott said at the time: “Dad is going to be missed by a lot of people. He was so well-known and well-liked in the area. He was the ideal beat bobby because he loved people and loved meeting and talking to people. He loved going into town shopping during the week.”

Had Bob not made his awful discovery, the full extent of Brady and Hindley’s crimes may never have been unearthed. They may have only been charged with the murder of 17-year-old Edward Evans.

Further searches of the moors discovered the bodies of Pauline Reade, 16, and John Kilbride, but the remains of 12-year-old Keith Bennett have never been found.

Good on ya Bob.

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