Speaker - Rotarian Tony Gill - The Cold Case Review Team

Tony explained that he had re-joined the police as a civilian investigator in the Murder Incident Review Team (MIRT). He explained that he would only be able to discuss things that were in the public domain.

MIRT sits within the Protective Services crime division (Homicide, Kidnap Rape, High Risk Missing Persons and Linked Crimes such as cash truck robberies). It is part of the Homicide section. In June 2015 £1.5 million was made available for cold case reviews and 35 investigators were hired.

The job of this team is threefold: -

1. Gather all the material generated by the original investigation and catalogue it. This is not always very easy as computers were not introduced until the mid 1980's (following the data over load in the Ripper case). Even then not everything was put on the computers and there are still lots of boxes of material.  Some of the material has been disposed of because of data protection requirements and some has been misplaced or damaged through police stations closing or being flooded.

2. Examine the data gathered in 1. for investigative opportunities e.g.

• a)  DNA - samples have only been collected since the late 1980's and even then today's tests are much better.

• b) Fingerprints - some surfaces can now be fingerprinted that earlier technology couldn't test.

3. Investigative Opportunities such as Actionable Intelligence, New Lines of Enquiry, New Witnesses  or I.D.s, Changes of Allegiance amongst people and Linked Incidents. Tony's position was within this category.

Having reviewed all this a decision is taken whether to file the case again or take action. No homicide case is ever closed if the perpetrator has not been brought to book so if no current action is taken the file will be left for later review in case technology or other things change.

Tony gave an example of a cold case that he had been involved in reviewing: -

Elsie Frost

On the 9th of October 1965 Elsie was murdered. That day she went to do some shopping, had lunch with her Mum and sister and then went to Horbury Lagoon where she was a member of the school sailing club. They were hosting a day for Adventure Scouts at the lagoon and Elsie was helping to train the scouts. She came off the water at 3:45pm, cleaned up and left heading home.

Most people went along a path by the side of the railway but because her Mum had said not to get her new shoes muddy she went along a different route to avoid a muddy underpass. This route went through a tunnel to get to a set of steps called the ABC Steps up to the road home. Elsie's body was found at the bottom of these steps with 5 knife wounds.



Her body was quickly found by a man out walking his dog but no culprit was ever found. There were various theories such as an unknown boyfriend or that she stumbled across somebody committing a criminal act but these didn't lead to anything.

In January 1966 an Inquest was held. One suspect arose a railway fireman who had a canoe on the lagoon. This man claimed to have been at home but witnesses claimed that he had been at the lagoon. He was ordered by the coroner to be charged at the Magistrates Court and then at Leeds Assizes with the offence. Both courts agreed that there was no case to answer.

On the 27th of September 2016 West Yorkshire Police released a statement saying "Police investigating the death of a Wakefield schoolgirl in 1965 have arrested a man on suspicion of her murder. Officers from West Yorkshire Police`s Homicide and Major Enquiry Team (HMET) arrested a 78 year old man in the Berkshire area on Tuesday September 27 on suspicion of the murder of 14-year-old Elsie Frost."

The national press all named this man as Peter Pickering a.k.a. The Beast of Wombwell. Pickering snatched 14-year-old Shirley Ann Boldy on her way home from school in 1972. He bound, raped and hacked her to death with a kitchen knife in a seven-hour orgy of violence. This attack came just five months after Pickering was released from a nine year jail sentence for sexual assaults on two girls.

Pickering, who had been locked up before for similar attacks, was originally sent to Broadmoor Hospital, Berks, before being moved to Ashworth hospital in Liverpool in 1976. It is then believed that he was moved in 2010 to Thornford Park in Newbury which is a low level secure hospital run by the Priory Group.

On Wednesday 28th September 2016 West Yorkshire police released a statement saying that "The man, who was arrested yesterday (27 September) in Newbury, has been bailed back into secure custody."

Tony was unable to say whether the man arrested was Peter Pickering.