Three-week plan to abduct boy included practicing letter writing

MICHAEL HAMER had been planning to abduct Joe for at least three weeks even to the extent of practicing his letter-writing to lure his victim away from home.

Four drafts of the letter were found by police.

Hamer told a psychiatrist he wrote the letters the day before the murder, but he told another psychiatrist that the letter which described “sexual activities” with Joe was written three weeks before. Two of the four letters were found in his bedroom, one in the back garden and one not until days later.

On the day he was killed, a teacher at Joe’s school discovered the letter Michael Hamer used.

A history teacher spotted the note, which was being passed around class, and asked to look. Joe resisted initially but handed it over.

It was clearly a fake, written by Hamer but purporting to be from the deputy headteacher telling Joe to go to Hamer’s house after school.

Realising the note was a fake, the teacher told a colleague and they both spoke to Joe. He agreed to show the letter to the deputy head at break time. He was also told to go home straight after school and not go to Michael Hamer’s house as the note instructed.

Joe dutifully went to the deputy head’s office and was seen by staff and pupils waiting outside.

But he was intercepted there by Hamer, who by sheer chance came across him in the corridor.

Hamer had been asked to deliver a note by another teacher, and for that reason alone was in the same part of the school.

Police believe Hamer must have realised why Joe was there and so ushered him away.

Minutes later, and again by chance, the two teachers who first saw the note saw Joe and Hamer in the corridor. They questioned Joe, asking if he’d done as he was told. In retrospect, the teachers told police, they could see Michael Hamer was putting him under pressure to lie.

The youngster, fearing the consequences, looked to Hamer as he answered the questions, as if checking the answers were right.

The teachers would have delved deeper and challenged Hamer about the note, but they were interrupted. The fire alarm near the boys’ toilets was set off, and everyone filed out to the playground before returning to class.

No one, not Joe’s parents nor police, blame the teachers for what happened. They did everything that would have been expected of them, police say.

The letter was discovered with Joe’s body, in the pocket of his trousers, stained with his blood, in the gully in Whitehead Park.