Robert Black: 'Nightmarish' serial killer and the hunt for him

He was also the prime suspect in the 1978 disappearance and murder of 13-year-old Devon girl Genette Tate, but never stood trial. 

Many of the keys to Black's future killing streak can be found in his upbringing in Scotland.

He had been born in Grangemouth, on 21 April 1947, the illegitimate child of Jessie Black. 

His mother emigrated to Australia and at six months old he was placed with an middle-aged foster couple in Kinlochleven, near Lochaber, named Tulip.

By 1958, the Tulips had both died, and Black was placed with another foster family in the same town. 

He soon committed his first known sexual assault, dragging a young girl into a public lavatory

Black was then transferred to a mixed-sex children's home on the outskirts of Falkirk. Here he regularly exposed himself to girls, and on one occasion, he forcibly removed the underwear of a girl.

As a result, he was sent to Red House Care Home, a strict, all-male establishment in Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, where he was was sexually abused by a male staff member for three years.

In 1963, Black was moved to another boys' home in Greenock and lured a seven year old to a deserted air-raid shelter

There he held the girl by the throat until she lost consciousness, before committing a sex act.

The following day, Black was arrested and charged with lewd and libidinous behaviour. but was as admonished after a psychiatrist advised the court that he believed it to be a 'one off' offence.

Black then moved back to Grangemouth, where he lodged with an elderly couple.

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In 1966, they discovered he had molested their nine-year-old granddaughter and kicked him out.

Black returned to Kinlochleven, where he lived with a married couple who had a six-year-old daughter.

Within a year, Black's landlords informed police that he had repeatedly molested their daughter. 

He pleaded guilty to three charges of indecent assault and was sentenced to a year at Polmont Young Offenders Institution, near Falkirk.

In September 1968, six months after his release from Polmont, Black moved to London and later he moved in with a Scottish couple at their home in Stamford Hill. There he remained until his arrest in July 1990.

The first murder Black is known to have committed was that of nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy, who was abducted and sexually assaulted in August 1981 near her home in Balinderry, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

Black's second victim was 11-year-old Susan Maxwell, who lived in Cornhill-on-Tweed on the English side of the  border. 

Susan was abducted in July 1982 as she walked home from playing tennis in Coldstream on the Scottish side.

The following month her body was found 265 miles away by a lorry driver in undergrowth, near Uttoxeter, Staffordshire. She had been bound, and gagged with sticking plaster,

Five-year-old Caroline Hogg, Black's youngest known victim, disappeared while playing outside her home in Portobello, Edinburgh, on July 1983.

Her naked body was found in a ditch close to the M1 motorway in Twycross, Leicestershire, 310 miles away.

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Hector Clark, then assistant chief constable of Northumbria Police, took overall charge of the Maxwell and Hogg investigations.

One of Clark's first key decisions was to introduce computer technology for the first time in Britain into a murder inquiry.

He was mindful of the criticisms of the recent investigation into the Yorkshire Ripper, which had become overwhelmed due to the volume of information in the old style card index system that they used

Shortly before 8pm on March 26, 1986, 10-year-old Sarah Harper disappeared from her home in Morley, Leeds.

More than three weeks later Sarah's gagged and bound body was found floating in the River Trent near Nottingham.

Following Sarah's murder, Hector Clark (by this time Deputy Chief Constable of Lothian and Borders Police) took overall charge of all three investigations.

It was decided that only those men with convictions for serious sexual offences against children would be investigated.

Unfortunately Black's name was not on the list, as his sole conviction had been in 1967.

In fact but for an eagle eyed retired postmaster 23 years he may well have gone on and commited more murders

On 14 July 1990. David Herkes was mowing his front garden in the Borders town of Stow when he saw a blue Transit van stop and a girl being lifted from the pavement.

Realising he had witnessed an abduction, Herkes alerted the police who arrested the man as he left the village.

One of the officers, who was the father of the abducted, girl was among the response team.

He found her in Black's van, her wrists bound behind her back, her legs tied together, her mouth bound and gagged with sticking plaster, and a hood tied over her head.

At nearby Selkirk police station, Black was charged with abduction and later remanded in custody. 

Noting the similarities between the Stow abduction and his three unsolved child murders Clark then interviewed Black and left convinced that he was the man they had been hunting the last decade.

A search of Black's van found restraining devices including assorted ropes, sticking plaster, and hoods; a Polaroid camera; numerous articles of girls' clothing; a mattress; and a selection of sexual aids.

His Stamford Hill lodgings were also searched which yielded a large collection of child pornography including 58 videos and films depicting graphic child sexual abuse.

On 10 August 1990, Black  plead guilty to the abduction and sexual assault of the Stow schoolgirl at the High Court in Edinburgh and was given a life sentence.

The court was told that the girl would likely have suffocated within 15 minutes had she not been rescued.

Detectives from all forces in the UK linked to the joint manhunt then began an intense and painstaking endeavour to gather sufficient evidence to charge Black with the murders of Susan, Caroline and Sarah.

They discovered that in the mid-1970s Black bought a van to enable him to commit to driving for a living.

He then developed a knowledge of the UK road network, subsequently enabling him to snatch children across the country and dispose of their bodies hundreds of miles away.

Thankfully his employer had kept records of his jobs and petrol receipt expenses claims and police were able to place him at the various murder locations at the times the girls went missing. 

On 13 April 1994, Black appeared before Judge William Macpherson at Moot Hall, Newcastle charged with the murders of Susan, Caroline and Sarah.

Black rarely displayed any interest throughout the proceedings, typically remaining expressionless.

Five weeks later the jury found Black guilty of all three murders.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment , with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 35 years.

Passing sentence, Judge Macpherson described Black as being the perpetrator of "offences which are unlikely ever to be forgotten and which represent a man at his most vile".

Black remained unmoved upon receipt of this sentence, but as he prepared to leave the dock, he turned to the detectives from the various forces present and proclaimed, "Tremendous. Well done, boys."

This statement caused several of the detectives to weep.

Immediately following his convictions, Hector Clark told reporters:"The tragedy is these three beautiful children who should never have died. Black is the most evil of characters and I hope there is not now or ever another one like him."

On 27 October 2011, Black was found guilty of Jennifer Cardy's abduction, sexual assault, and murder at a trial at Armagh Crown Court.

He was given a fourth life sentence and told he would be at least 89 before he could be considered for release.

The nine-year, nationwide inquiry which culminated in the 1990 arrest of Robert Black proved to be one of the longest and expensive British murder investigations of the 20th century. The total cost of the inquiry at the time was estimated to be £12 million.

Black never admitted responsibility for any of the murders of which he was suspected, and refused to cooperate with investigators looking at other possible offences, despite having little hope of ever being freed. 

He died from a heart attack at Maghaberry Prison, Belfast, on 12 January 2016, aged 68.

His body was cremated and no family or friends were present at this service or came forward to claim the ashes.

Retired Deputy Chief Constable Tom Wood worked on the Susan Maxwell and Caroline Hogg cases as a Detective Inspector.

The former Lothian and Borders officer said the conviction of Black was a tribute to the vision of Hector Clark.

He said:"Hector stuck his neck out by using a computer system for the first time in a murder inquiry.

"He had been badly marked by the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry, where he was part of that debacle as a Detective Inspector, and knew the frailties of the old card index system.

"He was calm and confident and hugely experienced having led 70 murder investigations before he came to us.

"Though he was of that generation that did not understand computers - he gathered people around him who did."

Mr Wood says Black proved to be a 'nightmarish offender' to investigate.

He added:"He was a lone operator, who lived a solitary lifestyle and had no convictions to speak of, other than some incidents when he was a child.

"He was forensically aware enough not to leave much behind.

"There was nothing in his background that suggested we should have spotted him before.

"Hector used to say that this guy ( Black) is going to come back and when he comes back we have got to catch him and we have got to have everything ready for him.

"He was right. That is exactly what happenned."