Scottish paedophile Robert Black has been found guilty of the abduction and murder of Jennifer Cardy (9) in 1981.
Black (64) was accused of abducting and murdering the girl close to her home in Co Antrim. He denied the charges.
The schoolgirl was snatched as she cycled to a friend’s house in the quiet village of Ballinderry, near Lisburn, on August 12th, 1981. Her body was found six days later in a dam behind a roadside layby 25km away at Hillsborough, Co Down.
The jury at Armagh Crown Court took four hours and 15 minutes over two days to reach its verdicts.
Black showed no emotion when the verdicts were read out.
Jennifer’s mother Patricia sobbed quietly in the public gallery and was comforted by her husband Andy.
Mr Justice Ronald Weatherup told Black: “You have been convicted by a jury of murder. There is only one sentence that will be imposed by law.
“That’s the sentence of life imprisonment. Accordingly, I sentence you to life imprisonment.”
He then turned to the guards and said: “Take him down please.”
In 1994, Black was convicted of three unsolved child murders in the 1980s -11-year-old Susan Maxwell, from the Scottish Borders, five-year-old Caroline Hogg, from Edinburgh, and Sarah Harper (10), from Morley, near Leeds - and a failed abduction bid in Nottingham in 1988.
Black’s killing was finally ended in 1990 when he was caught red-handed by police with a barely alive six-year-old girl hooded, bound, gagged and stuffed in a sleeping bag in the back of his van in the Scottish village of Stow. He had sexually assaulted her moments earlier.
During the trial, the Crown claimed that Black, a London-based dispatch driver at the time, was in Northern Ireland on the day doing delivery runs. It further contended that the kidnap and murder of Jennifer bears the hallmarks and signature of his past crimes against young girls. Jennifer had marks on her neck when she was found that some experts claimed were indicative of a ligature.
Jennifer’s parents, Andy and Patricia, her sister, Victoria, and brothers, Mark and Philip, emerged from court about an hour after the verdict to give their reaction.
Emphasising how their strong Christian faith had sustained them during the trial, her father revealed that the family had prayed for Black. “We prayed for Robert Black, that Robert Black would some day know Jesus as his saviour, just as Jennifer knew Jesus as her saviour, and the wonderful thing is that some day we will be reunited with Jennifer in glory and that is just a wonderful thing to know that.”
Mr Cardy said he did not hate Black, just pitied him. “We pity Robert Black and the awful life he has led. We have been able to live without bitterness and vengeance in our lives and when we lost Jennifer life was never the same but life had to go on and we had to live life," he said. “Robert Black stole the life of our daughter, Jennifer, but Robert Black didn’t steal the lives of me and my family - we’ve lived a happy, prosperous life, but we miss Jennifer each and every day.”
He added: “We don’t have any hate for Robert Black. I fear for him because Robert Black’s end if he doesn’t come to repentance will be an eternity with Satan in hell.”
Jennifer’s mother said she missed her daughter every day. “Jennifer was the most happiest of all little girls that I have known, she was so innocent, she was just so happy and she loved her family and Jennifer had a lovely thoughtfulness beyond her nine years.”
Mrs Cardy said the verdict had not brought closure.
“I will be really honest - I don’t think we will ever have closure because our daughter has gone, but we have the relief of knowing that the perpetrator of this gruesome, horrible crime has been brought to justice and that does give us a peace and relief.”
Mr Cardy said he said he believed Black deserved to die for what he had done.
“I would have to say that I would still say that somebody who commits murders like this, I believe their lives should be taken, I believe they should be put to death, that’s my belief,” he said. “I don’t mean that in a vengeful way, I mean that in a just and righteous way.”
Mr Cardy said the trial had been a terrible ordeal but he had remained confident that justice would always been done.
“For the last six weeks we have had to endure and listen to how Robert Black kidnapped and sexually abused and murdered our daughter and our children’s sister and it has been absolutely horrendous,” he said.
“We heard things that, in all honesty, wasn’t even in our imagination and for 30 years we, as a family, really have never tried to understand or try to think about what in the last hours of her life she went through, and all of a sudden we were confronted with the awfulness of those last few hours and what she would have had to suffer and that has been truly awful for each and every one of us.”
PA