Stefan Kiszko, who spent 16 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, received his final vindication yesterday when the real killer was jailed for life. Ronald Castree, 54, a dealer in comics, from Oldham, Greater Manchester, was told he must serve a minimum of 30 years for the paedophile murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed in 1975.
Castree was not on the list of suspects drawn up by the police during their original inquiry, although he lived close to the scene of the attack. In 2005 he was arrested, but not charged, after another sexual attack. It was found that his DNA was a direct match for traces found on the dead girl's clothing.
His conviction will strengthen the hand of those who want the police to be allowed to build up a national DNA database. Critics who fear that the UK is becoming a "surveillance society" say that the DNA records of suspects who are questioned but not charged should be destroyed.
Castree claimed that he had no idea how his DNA was found at the crime scene. In court, his defence team said it was "overwhelmingly probable" that the killer was a convicted paedophile named Raymond Hewlett.
But Castree was found guilty after the jury had spent nearly 12 hours deliberating. Passing sentence at Bradford Crown Court, Mr Justice Openshaw told him: "You carried on with the rest of your life as if nothing had happened. It was a pretence you kept up for 32 years. Your past has now caught up with you." Lesley Molseed vanished from her home in Rochdale after she went out to buy a loaf of bread for her mother, on Sunday, 5 October 1975. Her body was found three days later on the moors near the border of Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. She had been stabbed 12 times.
In 1976, a 23-year-old loner, Stefan Kiszko, was jailed for life for the murder. A giant of a man, who suffered from immaturity because his testicles had not developed, Mr Kiszko had confessed to the crime after two days' questioning with no solicitor present.
He later withdraw his confession, but his barrister, David Waddington, now a Conservative peer, ran a defence of manslaughter through diminished responsibility. Coincidentally, it was Mr Waddington who, as Home Secretary in 1990, ordered the case to be reopened, after a long campaign by Mr Kiszko's mother. Having heard scientific evidence that Mr Kiszko was physically incapable of leaving his sperm at the murder scene, three Appeal Court judges quashed his conviction in 1992. He died from a heart condition in December 1993. His mother, who had fought for so long to get her son home, died just five months later.
After his release, Daniel Molseed, Lesley's stepfather, was forced to declare his innocence, after he was arrested and questioned about her death. Then public suspicion turned on Hewlett, who had two convictions for violent attacks on children in the 1970s.
Ann Kiszko, Stefan's aunt, said that she felt sorry for Castree's family, who had not known that they were living with a "monster".
A 30-year-old travesty
* 5 October 1975
Lesley Molseed, 11, is reported missing after being sent to buy bread.
* 8 October 1975
Body found by motorist, on moorland, with 12 stab wounds.
* December 1975
Stefan Kiszko, 23, held. Confession to murder after two days, but withdraws it.
* 12 July 1976
Ronald Castree guilty of sex assault on 9-year-old.
* 21 July 1976
Kiszko jailed for life.
* 18 February 1992
Kiszko released after scientific evidence proves he could not be killer.
* 23 December 1993
Kiszko dies of heart failure.
* 17 October 1997
Lesley's mother, April Garrett, demands new inquiry after a book, serialised in Daily Mail, named paedophile Raymond Hewlett as killer.
* 1 October 2005
Castree arrested in Oldham after assault not related to Molseed case. Released without charge.
* 5 November 2006
Castree rearrested after his DNA was found to match traces found on Lesley's body.
* 23 October 2007
Trial of Castree opens at Bradford Crown Court.
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