Driver 'in area when girl abducted'

A Scottish van driver accused of murdering a schoolgirl while delivering to the North told police he accepted he was in the region the day she vanished, his trial has heard.

But Robert Black, now 64, denied it was him who snatched nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy as she cycled to a friend’s house in the quiet Co Antrim village of Ballinderry on August 12, 1981.

The seventh day of Black’s trial at Armagh Crown Court heard transcripts of the police interviews with him 15 years later when they first put it to him that he abducted Jennifer.

With Black listening from the dock, Crown lawyer Donna McColgan and police detective Patrick McAnespie read the 1996 exchanges.

“I’m saying to you Robert, were you on that road and did you lift Jennifer Cardy?” the interviewing officer had asked Black.

“No,” he replied.

The officer added: “I want you to think about it.”

Black responded: “I don’t need to, it’s something you would remember.”

The defendant worked for now defunct London-based firm Poster Dispatch and Storage (PDS) around the time of the murder.

The Crown claim he was in Northern Ireland the day Jennifer disappeared, dropping off orders in Belfast and Newry.

The schoolgirl’s body was found six days after she went missing floating in a dam behind a lay-by on the main Newry to Belfast road.

When quizzed in custody in 1996, Black initially claimed he did not know if he was in Northern Ireland on the day in question.

Police then presented him with evidence they claimed showed he was there.

This included his PDS salary docket for that week noting a bonus payment, apparently for the Ireland trip, and a fuel purchase receipt signed by Black the day after the crime in Coventry.

The prosecution claim the only journey he could have been doing when he stopped to fill up was from the docks in Liverpool on the way back to London having got the overnight ferry from Belfast.

The interviewing detective put the various strands of evidence to Black and asked did he now accept he was in Northern Ireland on August 12, 1981.

He replied: “Yes I would accept that, yeah.”

The prosecution have claimed Black’s final remark in the 1996 police interview was significant.

He said: “If I think of anything that might clear it up I will get in touch with Mr Saunders (his solicitor in 1996) and let him know.”

Black denies charges of kidnap and murder.

Jennifer’s parents Andy and Patricia and her younger sister Victoria watched from the public gallery as the interview transcripts were acted out before the jury and judge, Mr Justice Ronnie Weatherup.