Child killer's 'confession' over paper girl

by PAUL HENDERSON, Mail on Sunday

One of Britain's most notorious child sex killers has indicated that he murdered papergirl Genette Tate 23 years ago.

Evil Robert Black, who is serving 35 years for the torture and murder of three little girls, tried to make a deal for an easier life in prison in return for information.

But he clammed up when police went to interview him at high-security Wakefield jail, West York-shire.

Scots-born Black, 54, had implied to another inmate, serving ten years for robbery, that he knew what had happened to 14-year-old Genette.

She vanished in 1978 while delivering newspapers near her home in Aylesbeare, Devon.

The inmate tried to cultivate a relationship with Black, suspected of at least six unsolved murders, to get information because he had seen the suffering of friends whose daughter was the victim of another paedophile.

He telephoned Beverley Ward, the aunt of nine-year-old Kayleigh Ward, who was sexually assaulted and murdered in 1996 in Chester.

She said: 'He told me he was on the same landing as Robert Black. He was saying: "Black wants to talk. I think he wants to confess.î

'I wanted to help to stop the suffering of Genette Tate's family.'

Mother-of-three Mrs Ward, of Chester, contacted Detective Chief Inspector Ken Lee of Cheshire police, who arranged an interview with Black.

A Mail on Sunday investigation has uncovered that there were discussions about giving Black immunity for Genette's killing, transferring him to the medical wing of a Scottish jail and changing his name.

Mr Lee, now retired, said last week: 'Out of conversations Black was suggesting he was responsible for Genette Tate's murder. But as far as I can recall he did not make a direct admission.

'Once around the table Black was saying: "I haven't done it. I don't know what you are talking aboutî.'

Black was convicted in 1994 of murdering Susan Maxwell, 11, of Cornhill-on-Tweed, Northumberland, Sarah Harper, ten, of Leeds, and Caroline Hogg, five, of Portobello, near Edinburgh.

Last night Genette's father John Tate, 59, who split from her mother Sheila Cook, said: 'In the light of this the police should go back to Robert Black again and maybe offer him something to get a confession to end our nightmare. I am convinced that Black murdered Genette.

'I have sent him birthday and Christmas cards as reminders that I am still out here hoping that he will help us get over this once and for all.'

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