Robert Black (serial killer)

The nationwide manhunt for Black was one of the most exhaustive UK murder investigations of the 20th century. He died of a heart attack at HMP Maghaberry in 2016 aged 68.

Black died from a heart attack at HMP Maghaberry on 12 January 2016, aged 68. His body was cremated at Roselawn Crematorium, outside Belfast, on 29 January. No family or friends were present at this service. In this short service, the Presbyterian chaplain of HMP Maghaberry, the Reverend Rodney Cameron, read a section of Psalm 90. Black's ashes were scattered at sea in February 2016.

Black appeared at Armagh Crown Court, charged with the 1981 sexual assault of Jennifer Cardy, on 22 September 2011. He was tried before Judge Ronald Weatherup, and acknowledged that he may have been in Northern Ireland on the date of Cardy's abduction, but pleaded not guilty to the charges.

To further support the prosecution's contention that Cardy's murder had been committed by Black, Nathaniel Cary, a forensic pathologist, testified on the 11th day of the trial to the similarities between Cardy's abduction and murder, and that of Sarah Harper. Cary testified that the circumstances of the two girls' deaths were "remarkably similar", and that the injuries inflicted upon both girls' bodies strongly suggested both girls had been alive, albeit likely unconscious, when their bodies had been placed in water.

After the discovery of Hogg's body, a conference of senior Staffordshire and Leicestershire detectives unanimously concluded that Hogg's and Maxwell's murderers were the same person, to a large degree because of the distance between the abduction and discovery sites. (Cardy's murder was not linked to this series until 2009.)

On 15 December 2009, Black was summoned to appear at Armagh Crown Court in Northern Ireland to answer charges relating to the 1981 murder of Jennifer Cardy. He was formally charged the following day.

In 2008, the Crown Prosecution Service stated that insufficient evidence existed to charge Black with any further murders. Black has been linked to at least fourteen further child murders and disappearances across the UK, Ireland, and continental Europe committed between 1969 and 1989.

Robert Black appealed against his 1994 convictions. His appeal was heard before Lord Taylor at the Court of Appeal on 20 February 1995. Black contended he had been denied a fair trial due to details of his 1990 abduction and sexual assault charges being introduced as similar fact evidence at his trial, a ruling his defence counsel had fundamentally objected to. Black also contended that the final instructions delivered to the jury by Judge Macpherson had been unbalanced. Black's appeal hearing had been expected to last three days, but at the end of the first day, Lord Taylor refused leave to appeal the conviction on the grounds that Black's trial had been fair, and that none of his contentions could be substantiated.

In July 1995, Black was attacked in his cell at Wakefield prison by two fellow inmates, who threw boiling water mixed with sugar over him, bludgeoned him with a table leg, then stabbed him in the back and neck with an improvised knife. Black sustained superficial wounds, burns and bruising in this attack; his attackers were jailed for three further years after admitting wounding Black with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Black was convicted of the kidnapping, rape and murder of three girls on 19 May 1994. He was also convicted of the kidnapping of a fourth girl, and had earlier been convicted of the kidnapping and sexual assault of a fifth. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 35 years.

On 13 April 1994, Robert Black appeared before Judge William Macpherson at Moot Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne. Black pleaded not guilty to each of the 10 charges of kidnap, murder, attempted kidnap, and preventing the lawful burial of a body.

The closest Black ever came to confessing to any of his crimes was shortly before his 1994 trial, when Wyre asked why he had never denied any of the charges brought against him. According to Wyre, Black replied, "Because I couldn't."

Police believe that Black had committed more murders than the four for which he was convicted, with senior detectives believing the true number of victims he had killed to be at least eight. In July 1994, a meeting was convened between senior detectives from the six police forces involved in the nationwide manhunt for Black, and representatives from other UK forces with unsolved missing child and child murder cases. The meeting assessed the evidence investigators had assembled to establish whether Black had killed other children.

Several pretrial hearings were held between July 1992 and March 1994; these hearings saw Black's defence counsel submit contentions that their client be tried on each count separately, and that the prosecution not be allowed to demonstrate any similarity between the modus operandi of each offence at the upcoming trial. In the penultimate pretrial hearing, in January 1994, Judge William Macpherson ruled against defence motions to try Black on each charge separately, and also ruled to allow the prosecution to submit similar fact evidence between the cases. This ruling allowed the prosecution to make these similarities between the cases known, and to introduce into evidence Black's recent conviction for the abduction and sexual assault of the Stow schoolgirl. The prosecution was prohibited from introducing into evidence the transcript of the August 1990 interview between Black and detectives Watt and Orr.

Black was arrested in Stow on 14 July 1990. David Herkes, a 53-year-old retired postmaster, was mowing his front garden when he saw a blue Transit van slow to a standstill across the road. The driver exited the van—ostensibly to clean his windscreen—as the six-year-old daughter of Herkes' neighbour passed his field of view. As Herkes stooped to clear grass cuttings from his lawnmower, he saw the girl's feet lifting from the pavement; he then straightened himself to observe the vehicle's driver hastily pushing something through the passenger door before clambering across to the driver's seat, closing the passenger door, and starting the engine.

On 10 August 1990, Black was tried for the abduction and sexual assault of the Stow schoolgirl. He was tried at the Edinburgh High Court before Lord Donald MacArthur Ross. The trial lasted one day.

In September 1990, Black announced his intention to appeal against his life sentence, but he later abandoned this. In November 1990, he was transferred to Peterhead Prison.

By December 1990, the inquiry team decided they had sufficient circumstantial evidence to convince the Crown that there was a reasonable prospect of securing convictions against Black, although Clark was worried that the inquiry had not uncovered any forensic evidence to tie Black to the murders. All the evidence was submitted to the Crown in May 1991. In March 1992, Crown lawyers decided that the evidence was sufficient to try Black for the three murders and the attempted abduction of Teresa Thornhill. At a news conference held on 11 March, Hector Clark informed the press that "criminal proceedings have been issued on the authority of the Crown Prosecution Service against Robert Black".

In his opening statement on behalf of the Crown, prosecutor John Milford QC described the case to be tried as "every parent's nightmare" as he outlined the prosecution's contention that Robert Black had committed the three child murders and the attempted abduction, and the similarities between these offences and the 1990 abduction and sexual assault of the Stow schoolgirl for which Black was already serving a life sentence. Milford then described the circumstances of each abduction and murder for the jury; contending that each victim had remained alive in Black's van for several hours before her murder, and that each had been killed near the location Black had disposed of her body. In the latter stages of this five-hour opening statement, Milford contended that Black had kidnapped each victim for his own sexual gratification, and pointed out Black's extensive record of child sexual abuse and the paraphernalia discovered in his vehicle and at his London address. Milford closed his speech by stating that the petrol receipts and travel records would prove Black had been at all the abduction, attempted abduction and body recovery sites on the dates in question.

On 4 May, Ronald Thwaites began to outline his case in defence of Black. Thwaites reminded the jury the police had been unsuccessfully investigating these crimes for eight years before Black's 1990 arrest and conviction for the Stow abduction, and asserted that the investigators had seized on this case in an attempt to scapegoat his client to appease their feelings of "frustration and failure", and in an effort to restore broken reputations. Thwaites claimed that, although the paraphernalia introduced into evidence attested to his client's admitted obsession with paedophilic material, no direct evidence existed to prove Black had progressed from molester to murderer. Describing his decision not to permit Black to testify on his own behalf in relation to the petrol receipts and travel records, Thwaites informed the jury: "No man can be expected to remember the ordinary daily routine of his life going back many years." Thwaites then began to introduce witnesses to testify on behalf of the defence, and continued to do so until 10 May.

On 12 May, both counsel delivered their closing arguments to the jury. Prosecutor John Milford argued first; opening his final address to the jury by describing the circumstances of Black's 1990 arrest and recounting the extensive circumstantial evidence presented throughout the trial, and emphasising the fact no physical evidence existed due to the interval between the offences and Black's arrest. In reference to the defence argument that Black's close proximity to each of the abduction and body disposal sites of the dates in question was mere coincidence, Milford stated that if this defence contention were true, it would be "the coincidence to end all coincidences". Milford then requested that the jury reach a guilty verdict.

Judge Macpherson delivered his final instructions to the jury on 16 May and the following morning. In his final address, Judge Macpherson implored the jury to discard any emotion or personal distaste for Black's extensive history of sexual offences against children when considering their verdict, and not to prejudge his guilt because of his 1990 conviction for the abduction and sexual assault of the Stow schoolgirl. Judge Macpherson further directed the jury to instead focus on the evidence presented at the trial and decide whether the "interlocking similarities" between the cases presented were sufficient to convince them of Black's guilt, before reminding them that any conclusions of guilt on one charge must not determine guilt on the remaining nine charges they were to debate. The jury then received strict instructions against reading newspapers, watching television or making any telephone calls, before retiring to consider their verdict. These deliberations continued for two days.

The eight-year, nationwide inquiry which culminated in the 1990 arrest of Robert Black proved to be one of the longest, most exhaustive and costly British murder investigations of the 20th century. By the time investigators had amassed enough evidence to convince the Crown Prosecution Service to charge Black with the three child murders and the attempted abduction of Thornhill, the dossier they had assembled was estimated to weigh 22 tonnes. The total cost of the inquiry is estimated to be £12 million.

Black never admitted responsibility in any of the murders of which he was convicted or suspected, and refused to cooperate with investigators, in spite of having little hope of ever being freed. According to Ray Wyre, a pioneer in the treatment of sex offenders who conducted several interviews with Black between 1990 and 1993, the prime reason for this was an issue of control for Black. Wyre summarised the psychology behind Black's refusal to cooperate with investigators:

11 May 1989. Ramona Herling (11). Last seen walking to a swimming complex just 500 yards from her home in the town of Bad Driburg. Her body has never been found.

One of the outcomes of this meeting was that investigators contacted the FBI to request that they compose a psychological profile of the murderer for UK investigators. The FBI completed this profile in early 1988.

In January 1988, the UK investigators received the psychological profile of the killer from the FBI. This profile described the killer as a white male aged between 30 and 40 (likely closer to 40), who was a classic loner. This offender would be unkempt in appearance, and had received less than 12 years of formal education. He likely lived alone, in rented accommodation, in a lower-middle class neighbourhood. This profile also deduced that the motive for the child killings was sexual, that the offender held a fixation with child pornography, that he retained souvenirs from his victims, and he most likely engaged in necrophilia with his victims' bodies shortly after their death, before disposing of them.

On 23 April 1988, an attempted abduction of a teenage girl occurred in the Nottingham district of Radford which was not initially deemed by Nottinghamshire Police to be linked to the three child killings, and thus remained unreported to Clark or senior investigators in the national manhunt, despite the fact that all chief constables across the UK had been requested to report incidents of this nature to the inquiry team. The victim of this attempted abduction was Teresa Thornhill, a 15-year-old who was 4 ft 11 in (150 cm) tall, which may have led Black to think she was younger than she was.

At the request of Scottish detectives, Black's Stamford Hill lodgings were searched by the Metropolitan Police. This search yielded a large collection of child pornography in magazine, book, photographic and video format, including 58 videos and films depicting graphic child sexual abuse which Black later claimed to have bought in continental Europe. Also found were several items of children's clothing, six pairs of spectacles, a semen-stained copy of a Nottingham newspaper detailing the 1988 attempted abduction of Teresa Thornhill, and a variety of sex aids.

By January 1987, all information relating to the murders initially linked to Black was entered into the newly established HOLMES information technology system, with the £250,000 cost to implement it provided by the Home Office. Information continued to be entered into the database, and police forces nationwide could cross-check all data fed into this system. This database—based at the Child Murder Bureau in Bradford—expanded to hold information upon over 189,000 people, 220,000 vehicles, and details of interviews held with over 60,000 people. Much of the information came through three confidential hotlines established in 1984. As a result of the investigation into the killings, several unrelated crimes, including offences relating to child abuse, were solved.

5 May 1987: Virginie Delmas (10). Abducted from Neuilly-sur-Marne on 5 May 1987. Her nude body was found in a Mareuil-les-Meaux orchard on 9 October, with her clothes folded beside her. Delmas had been strangled; the extent of decomposition prevented the pathologist from determining whether she had been raped before death. Black is known to have made several deliveries in and around Paris on the date of Delmas' disappearance.

30 May 1987: Hemma Greedharry (10). A Malakoff schoolgirl, originally from Mauritius. Her body was discovered in a parking lot in Châtillon two hours after she was last seen walking home from a downtown bookstore. Greedharry had been raped and strangled, and her body set alight. Black is known to have regularly travelled upon the road where Greedharry's body was found when making deliveries in northern France.

3 June 1987: Perrine Vigneron (7). Vigneron disappeared on her way to buy a Mother's Day card in Bouleurs en route to attending a pottery course; her strangled body was discovered in a rapeseed field in Chelles on 27 June, with her clothes folded neatly beside her. A white van had been seen in Bouleurs on the day of Vigneron's disappearance.

27 June 1987: Sabine Dumont (9). A Paris schoolgirl last seen alive in Bièvres on 27 June, walking home from a bookstore. Her strangled and sexually assaulted body was found the following day in the commune of Vauhallan. Black was named as a prime suspect in Dumont's murder in 2011. A DNA sample of Dumont's killer was recovered from her clothing in 1999, but has never been compared to Black.

At about 7:50 p.m. on 26 March 1986, 10-year-old Sarah Jayne Harper disappeared from the Leeds suburb of Morley, having left her home to buy a loaf of bread from a corner shop 100 yards (metres) from her home. The owner of the shop confirmed that Harper had bought a loaf of Warburtons bread and two packets of crisps from her at approximately 7:55 pm—also returning two empty glass lemonade bottles to collect a 20 pence deposit for their return—before leaving her shop. The shopkeeper also recollected that a balding man had also briefly entered the shop moments after Harper, then left as the child made her purchases.

Despite these similarities, several investigators initially doubted whether Harper's murder should be linked to the series due to the differences in the circumstances of her abduction and the fact that the child had been subjected to a serious sexual assault prior to her murder, whereas decomposition had erased any such clear traces on the bodies of the two previous victims. Harper had been abducted on a rainy Wednesday evening from a suburb in the north of England, wearing a hooded anorak covering much of her face, as opposed to being abducted on a summer Friday afternoon in southern Scotland while wearing summer clothing. Investigators remained open-minded as to whether Harper's murder had been committed by the same person, and telephone and computer connections were established between the incident room in the Leeds district of Holbeck and Leith. Harper's murder was formally linked to the series in November 1986.

On 21 April 1986, the head of Scotland Yard's Criminal Intelligence Branch, Phillip Corbett, hosted a summit meeting at Scotland Yard, to discuss how best to share information between the forces involved in the manhunt, and to investigate potential links with 19 other unsolved child murders. Senior officers attended from 16 UK police forces. At this stage, the inquiry had cost in excess of a million pounds.

One of the witnesses cross-examined on the third day of the trial was James Fraser, a forensic scientist, who had examined more than 300 items recovered from Black's van and his London lodgings; Fraser conceded that in over 1,800 microscopic comparisons, no forensic link had been established between Black and the three victims. In direct re-examination by John Milford, Fraser said that the interval between the offences and Black's arrest, and the fact Black had only bought the van in which he was arrested in 1986, would make establishing a forensic link between the three murders unlikely.

5 August 1986: Cheryl Morriën (7). Morriën disappeared as she walked to her friend's home in the Dutch city of IJmuiden. Her body has never been found. Black made regular trips to nearby Amsterdam to buy child pornography. He is considered a strong suspect in this case.

20 June 1985: Silke Garben (10). Garben was a Detmold schoolgirl who disappeared on her way to a dental appointment. Her body was found in a stream close to a British Army base near to her home the day after her disappearance. Garben had been violently sexually assaulted and strangled, although she died of drowning. Black is known to have made a delivery of posters to this British Army base on the date of Garben's disappearance.

Five-year-old Caroline Hogg, Black's youngest known victim, disappeared while playing outside her Beach Lane home in the Edinburgh suburb of Portobello in the early evening of 8 July 1983. When she failed to return home by 7:15 p.m., her family searched the surrounding streets. A boy told them he had seen Caroline with a man on the nearby promenade, which they searched before calling the Lothian and Borders Police.

Black's second confirmed victim was 11-year-old Susan Claire Maxwell, who lived in Cornhill-on-Tweed on the English side of the Anglo-Scottish border. Maxwell was abducted on 30 July 1982 as she walked home from playing tennis in Coldstream. She was last seen alive at 4:30 p.m., crossing the bridge over the River Tweed, and was likely abducted by Black shortly after.

Based upon the day of the week when Maxwell and Hogg had been abducted (a Friday), the killer was likely tied to a delivery or production schedule. Following the August 1982 discovery of Maxwell's body, numerous transport firms with links between Scotland and the Midlands of England were contacted, and drivers were questioned about their whereabouts on the date of her abduction. This line of inquiry was repeated following the discovery of Hogg's body, but in both instances failed to yield results.

For the HOLMES database, investigators concluded only those with convictions for serious sexual offences against children would warrant further investigation. Those to be checked were to have been convicted of child murder, child abduction or attempted child abduction, or the indecent assault of a child. Every police force in the UK was asked to check their databases for people who had received convictions for any of these offences within 10 years of the 1982 murder of Susan Maxwell. This narrowed the number of people to be checked to 40,000 men, and Black's name was not on the list, as his sole conviction had been in 1967.

At Selkirk police station, Black admitted to sexually assaulting the girl, saying he had not done more to her because he "didn't have much time". He was charged with abduction and remanded in custody. As Black awaited a scheduled 16 July Selkirk Sheriff court appearance, the detective superintendent—noting the similarities between the Stow abduction and the three child killings—notified Hector Clark of Black's arrest. On 16 July, Clark travelled from Wakefield to interview Black at Edinburgh's St Leonards police station. Although Black's answers in this brief interview were largely monosyllabic, Clark left feeling that Black was the man he had sought since 1982. At Black's initial remand hearing he was ordered to stand trial at Edinburgh High Court for the abduction of the Stow girl; he was then transferred to Saughton Prison.

Investigators learned that Poster, Dispatch and Storage Ltd had accounts with several oil companies, which allowed their drivers to buy fuel. With the cooperation of the companies, investigators obtained seven million credit card slips archived on microfiche detailing fuel purchases paid via this method at every one of their nationwide premises between 1982 and 1986. These were sent to the reopened incident room in Newcastle upon Tyne, where a team of officers searched them for Black's distinctive signature in an effort to pinpoint precisely when and where he had bought his fuel. This laborious task bore fruit: beginning in October 1990, investigators began to discover evidence proving the precise times Black had bought fuel at petrol stations close to each abduction site. In each instance, the time of purchase had been shortly before or after each child had been abducted.

Black remained unmoved upon receipt of this sentence, but as he prepared to leave the dock, he turned to the detectives from the various nationwide forces present at his sentencing who, since 1982, had been involved in his manhunt and proclaimed, "Tremendous. Well done, boys." This statement caused several of the detectives to weep. Black was then taken to Wakefield prison, to begin his sentence in the segregation unit, as a Category A prisoner.

Black was further convicted of the 1981 sexual assault and murder of nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy in 2011, and at the time of his death was regarded as the prime suspect in the 1978 disappearance and murder of 13-year-old Genette Tate. Black may also have been responsible for several other unsolved child murders throughout Britain, Ireland and continental Europe between 1969 and 1987.

The first murder Black is proven to have committed was that of nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy, who was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered on 12 August 1981. Cardy was last seen by her mother at 1:40 p.m. as she cycled to a friend's house in Ballinderry, County Antrim; she never arrived.

4 November 1981: Pamela Hastie (16). Her bludgeoned and strangled body was found in Rannoch Woods in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, in November 1981. Hastie had also been raped. One eyewitness was adamant he had seen a man matching Black's description running from the crime scene, but police do not believe Black was near Renfrewshire at the time of Hastie's murder.

In the latter stages of this interview both men steered their questioning to the subject of child abduction and murder, specifically in relation to the murder of Caroline Hogg. Informing Black that police had already established he had been in Portobello on the date of Hogg's abduction, Watt and Orr then tacitly informed him they had eyewitness accounts and petrol-station receipts, further proving that he was near Portobello on the date of Hogg's abduction. Orr then produced a composite drawing of the man with whom Hogg had left the funfair, and placed this composite alongside photographs of Black dating from the early 1980s—highlighting their similarities. Black's replies then became evasive and monosyllabic. Asked directly, at the end of the interview, to confess to end the suffering of his victims' families, he did not respond.

In an effort to discredit the prosecution's contention that Black had been making deliveries to Ireland, Black's defence counsel, David Spens, suggested on the fourth day of the trial the Coventry petrol receipt could only indicate Black had been making deliveries to Coventry on the day after Cardy's murder; in rebuttal, Toby Hedworth questioned a colleague of Black's, who confirmed the firm did not make deliveries to Coventry in the early 1980s.

16 June 1980: Patricia Morris (14). Disappeared from the grounds of her comprehensive school; her fully clothed body was found in Hounslow Heath two days after her disappearance. She had been strangled with a ligature, but had not been raped. Although Levi Bellfield has claimed to have murdered Morris, he was barely 12 years old at the time of her death, and police doubt he is the perpetrator.

28 July 1979: Suzanne Lawrence (14). Lawrence was last seen leaving her sister's home in Harold Hill, northeast London. Although her body has never been found, Lawrence's name was added to a list of Black's possible victims in July 1994. Her case has also been linked to Peter Tobin.

19 August 1978: Genette Tate (13). Abducted while delivering newspapers in Aylesbeare, Devon. Her bicycle was found in a country lane by two girls she had spoken to minutes before, but her body has never been found. Black made numerous deliveries of posters to the south-west of England in 1978. At the time of Black's death, the Devon and Cornwall Police were due to submit a fresh file to the Crown Prosecution Service, seeking formal abduction and murder charges in relation to this case.

18 March 1977: Mary Boyle (6). A Kincasslagh schoolgirl who disappeared while visiting her grandparents in Ballyshannon. She was last seen near her grandmother's house at Cashelard, near Ballyshannon, County Donegal on March 18, 1977. Black is known to have been in County Donegal at the time of Boyle's disappearance, being charged with after-hours drinking in Annagry. One eyewitness report states a woman had heard whimpering sounds emanating from Black's van, parked outside a Dungloe pub, on this date. Boyle's body has never been found.

21 May 1973: Christine Markham (9). A Scunthorpe schoolgirl last seen walking to school. Her body has never been found. Black was questioned about potential involvement in her abduction in 2004.

Black frequented the Three Crowns, a Stamford Hill pub, where he became known as a proficient darts player. There he also met a Scottish couple, Edward and Kathy Rayson. In 1972, he moved into their attic. The Raysons considered Black a responsible if somewhat reclusive tenant who gave them no cause for complaint beyond his poor hygiene. They suspected Black of viewing pornographic material, but had no idea it might be paedophilic. Black remained their lodger until he was arrested in July 1990.

To increase his scope for casual work, in the mid-1970s Black bought a white Fiat van to enable him to commit to driving for a living. In 1976, Black obtained a permanent job as a van driver for Poster, Dispatch and Storage Ltd, a Hoxton-based firm whose fleet delivered posters—typically depicting pop stars—and billboard advertisements to locations across the UK, Ireland and continental Europe. To his employers, Black was a conscientious employee who was willing to undertake the long-distance deliveries some of his married co-workers disliked.

8 April 1969: April Fabb (13). Fabb was last seen cycling from Metton, Norfolk towards her sister's home in Roughton, Norfolk. Her bicycle was found in a field on the route she had taken, but her body has never been found.

In September 1968, six months after his release from Polmont Borstal, Black moved to London, where he initially found lodgings in a bedsit close to King's Cross station. Between 1968 and 1970, he supported himself through various—often casual—jobs. One of these was as a lifeguard at a Hornsey swimming pool, where he was soon fired for fondling a young girl; no charges were brought.

In 1966, Black's landlords discovered he had molested their nine-year-old granddaughter whenever she visited their household. They evicted him but did not inform police, wanting to spare their granddaughter further trauma. Black lost his job soon after, and he returned to Kinlochleven, where he lodged with a married couple who had a six-year-old daughter.

In 1963, Black left the Red House Care Home. With assistance from child welfare agencies, he moved to another boys' home in Greenock and obtained a job as a butcher's delivery boy. He later said that he had fondled thirty to forty young girls while making deliveries if, upon calling at the house, he discovered young girls were alone in the premises. None of these incidents seem to have been reported.

On a summer evening in 1963, Black encountered a seven-year-old girl playing alone in a local park; he lured the child to a deserted air-raid shelter on the pretext of showing her some kittens. There he held the girl by the throat until she lost consciousness, then masturbated over her body. The following day, Black was arrested and charged with lewd and libidinous behaviour. A psychiatric examination suggested the incident was an isolated one, and that Black was not in need of treatment; as a result he was admonished for the offence.

In the six-hour interview, Black freely discussed his early sexual experiences, his experimentation with various forms of self-abuse, and his attraction towards young children; he also described his penchant for wearing young girls' clothing, and admitted to having sexually assaulted in excess of 30 young girls between the 1960s and 1980s. He was largely uncommunicative in response to questions even loosely pertaining to any unsolved child murders and disappearances, but said he had enticed two young girls into his van in Carlisle upon the pretext of asking for directions in late 1985, then allowed them to leave when eyewitnesses appeared.

By 1958, the Tulips had both died, and Black was placed with another foster family in Kinlochleven. He soon committed his first known sexual assault, dragging a young girl into a public lavatory and fondling her. His foster mother reported the offence and insisted he be removed from her home.

Robert Black (21 April 1947 – 12 January 2016) was a Scottish serial killer and paedophile who was convicted of the kidnap, rape, and murder of four girls aged between 5 and 11 in a series of killings committed between 1981 and 1986 in the United Kingdom.

Robert Black was born in Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, on 21 April 1947, the illegitimate child of Jessie Hunter Black and an unknown father. His mother originally planned to have him adopted before she emigrated to Australia to escape the stigma of his birth. He was not adopted, and at six months old was placed with an experienced, middle-aged foster couple in Kinlochleven named Tulip. He adopted their surname.