Tragic legacy of Lesley Anne Downey’s lonely trip to a the fair

We should take a few moments to remember Lesley Anne Downey, the young girl kidnapped, raped, murdered and dumped in a shallow grave at Christmas.

If she had been allowed to live, she would have been 69 years old.

The season of goodwill was in full swing in the background – music, laughter and families – but nobody in their right mind could have any goodwill towards Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.

Lesley was just 10-years-old when she was killed by them after they abducted her on Boxing Day 1964 at a fair in Ancoats, Manchester.

The bouffanted blonde and the strutting clothes horse-killer had no human feelings as they took the life of the child.

They even tape–recorded the last moments of her life. The little girl’s voice was full of fear.

“Don’t undress me, will you?” she begged. “I want to see Mummy.”

This recording has haunted police, reporters, lawyers and judges who became involved in bringing justice to the pair.

But it is Lesley’s brother who we must have sympathy for too. Throughout his life he blamed himself for her death.

Terry West, Lesley’s big brother, should have been with her at the fair on the day she was abducted.

Terry said recently: “I should have been with her. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been with her. I know it wouldn’t have done.”

Terry, was 12 at the time. Why should another child have to carry the guilt of a horror committed by predators of the worst kind?

But he did, he carries that guilt because on the day Lesley disappeared he had felt unwell.

He said: “I told Lesley, ‘If I feel any better, later on, I’ll take you to the fair. But as the day went on I just got worse and I was sniffling and sneezing.”

So, she went by herself, although friends and neighbours who knew her well were already there.

But Lesley didn’t return by 5pm and the family began to worry.

Terry said: “It wasn’t like her. I couldn’t get my head round why she wasn’t back.

By then they knew something had happened.

Terry said: “I should have been with her.”

Between 1963 and 1965 Brady and Hindley murdered five children – Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12, Keith Bennett, 12, Lesley and 17-year-old Edward Evans.

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Another memory, the death of Bob Spiers:

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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