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 crimes committed between 1981 and 1986 in the United Kingdom.

[11] 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.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent assault against a child and was sentenced to a year at Polmont Borstal in Brightons, an institution which specialised in the training and rehabilitating of serious youthful offenders.

[19] Although he later spoke freely about every aspect of his youth and adolescence—including the sexual abuse he had suffered at the Red House Care Home—he refused to discuss Polmont Borstal beyond saying he had vowed to never again be imprisoned; this has led to speculation that he may have been brutalised there.

[28] In 1976, Black obtained a permanent job as a van driver for Poster, Dispatch and Storage Ltd,[29] a Hoxton-based firm whose fleet delivered posters—typically depicting pop stars—and billboard advertisements to locations across the British Isles and continental Europe.

While working as a driver, Black developed a thorough knowledge of much of the British road network,[30] subsequently enabling him to snatch children across the entire country and dispose of their bodies hundreds of miles from the site of their abduction.

)[62] Due to the distances involved, police suspected that the murderer of Maxwell and Hogg worked as a lorry or van driver, or a sales representative,[51] which required him to travel extensively to locations which included the Scottish Borders.

Both girls had been bound and likely subjected to a sexual assault prior to the murders, and each had been wearing white ankle socks at the time of her abduction, which may have triggered a fetish in the perpetrator's psyche.

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.

[83] An autopsy showed she had died between five and eight hours after she was last seen alive,[84] and that the cause of her death was drowning; injuries she had received to her face, forehead, head and neck had most likely rendered her unconscious prior to being thrown into the water.

[85][39] Harper had also been the victim of a violent and sustained sexual assault prior to being thrown into the river, causing perimortem internal injuries which were described by the pathologist as "simply terrible".

[86] Days after Harper's body had been found, a further witness contacted West Yorkshire Police to say that at approximately 9:15 p.m. on 26 March, he had seen a white van with a stocky, balding man standing by the passenger door, parked close to the River Soar.

[94] 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.

[101] On 24 April 1988,[102] 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,[103] and thus remained unreported to Clark or senior investigators in the national manhunt, despite the fact that all chief constables across Britain had been requested to report incidents of this nature to the inquiry team.

[122] 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.

[127] Also found were several items of children's clothing, six pairs of spectacles,[n 5] a semen-stained copy of a Nottingham newspaper detailing the 1988 attempted abduction of Teresa Thornhill, and a variety of sex aids.

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.

"[31] Detectives from all forces in Britain linked to the joint manhunt then began an intense and painstaking endeavour to gather sufficient evidence to convince the Crown Prosecution Service to instigate legal proceedings against Black, with a reasonable chance of securing convictions.

Investigators discovered that upon his return to London from his long-distance deliveries to Northern England or Scotland, Black had regularly slept overnight in a house in Donisthorpe in Leicestershire which belonged to his landlord's son.

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.

[142] This laborious task bore fruit: beginning in October 1990, investigators began to discover evidence indicating the precise times Black had paid for fuel at petrol stations close to each abduction site.

Clark further explained he could not recall any other cases where children had been abducted, killed and their bodies transported considerable distances, before stating: "I don't believe there has been a bigger crime investigation in the United Kingdom, ever.

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.

To support Thwaites' contention that the three murders were not part of a series and had not been committed by Black, much of the testimony delivered by the defence witnesses referred to sightings of alternative suspects and suspicious vehicles near each abduction.

[170] Immediately following these convictions, the more than 20 detectives involved in the manhunt who had been present at his sentencing addressed the press assembled outside the Moot Hall, with Hector Clark stating: "The tragedy is these three beautiful children who should never have died.

[172] The records also showed that, on the night of the abduction, Black had boarded an overnight ferry from Northern Ireland to Liverpool,[175] before refuelling his van in Coventry the following day, en route to London.

[180][181] 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.

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.

[200] 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[201] in relation to this case.

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.