Child Snatcher: Manhunt true story: who was Robert Black, killer of Susan Maxwell and others, was he caught?

Child Snatcher: Manhunt is a two-part Channel 5 true crime documentary about one of Britain's most harrowing criminals. The series follows the desperate efforts of British police to find a suspected serial killer prying on young girls.

The disturbing crimes took place in the 1980s, with victims, one as young as five, targeted across Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland.

When the suspected killer was caught by chance, in the process of committing another heinous crime, police worked for years to compile compelling evidence in the hope of putting him away forever.

As Child Snatcher: Manhunt airs on Channel 5 on Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 August at 9pm, this is everything you need to know about sick child killer Robert Black:

Who was Robert Black?

Robert Black was a Scottish serial killer and paedophile who raped and killed at least four young girls in the 1980s. As a child he was placed in foster care and claimed that his foster mother regularly beat him.

After being removed into a foster home, he was sexually assaulted by staff for several years and committed assaults on other children at the home.

As a teenager he committed several sexual assaults and was placed in a borstal. After being released from the borstal he moved to London and found work as a van driver, travelling long distances. Several years later, he embarked on a horrific series of abductions, rapes, and murders of prepubescent girls.  

His killing spree launched one of Britain’s biggest manhunts, and an investigation into his crimes lasting more than a decade. 

Who were Robert Black’s victims?

Black’s abducted Susan Maxwell, an 11 year old girl, in 1982 near the Scottish border. She had disappeared from Coldstream, Scotland whilst walking home after a game of tennis.  She had been bound, gagged and sexually assaulted by Black, and her body was found more than 250 miles away near Staffordshire.

Black’s next victim was five year old Caroline Hogg - she was abducted from the Edinburgh coastal suburb Portobello in 1983. Hogg had been playing on the promenade following a friend’s birthday party when Black took her. 

He sexually assaulted and killed her and her body was found 10 days after her disappearance, more than 300 miles away in a ditch off the M1 in Leicestershire.

In 1986 Black abducted Sarah Harper, aged 10, was abducted by Black whilst walking home from a corner shop in Leeds. Black sexually assaulted his victim before drowning her - Harper’s body was found four weeks later in the River Trent, near Nottingham.

Black’s first confirmed murder victim, but the last that he was convicted for, was nine year old Jennifer Cardy, who was abducted in 1981 after leaving her home in County Antrim to cycle to a friend’s house. Black sexually assaulted and murdered Cardy, leaving her body in a dam.

What happened to Robert Black?

A nationwide manhunt for Black was launched, and became one of the biggest operations of its kind in British policing history, involving six British police forces.

On 14 July 1990, a David Herkes, a retired postmaster, witnessed a man abduct a child in the village of Stow on the Scottish Borders. He had seen a man force a six year old girl into a Transit van - Herkes took down the van’s registration number and contacted her mother, who called the police.

Police arrived at the scene within minutes, and as Herkes was speaking to an officer, the same van came into view. Herkes pointed out the van and an officer jumped out in front of it, forcing the driver to stop.

The driver, Robert Black, was pulled from the vehicle and arrested. One of the officers on the scene was the abducted girl’s father - he found her in the back of the van in a sleeping bag, with her wrists tied together and her mouth gagged. An examination by a doctor found that she had been sexually assaulted.

Black was sentenced to life imprisonment for the abduction of the Stow girl - he announced his attention to appeal the sentence but did not do so. 

Over several years, police forces involved in the manhunt for the serial killer of young girls gathered evidence linking Black to the crimes. In May 1994, he was found guilty of three counts of kidnapping, three counts of murder, three counts of preventing the lawful burial of a body, and one count of attempted abduction. 

He was sentenced to three life sentences, to be served concurrently, with a recommendation for him to serve at least 35 years.

In 2011, Black was sentenced to abduction, sexual assault and murder of a fourth victim, Jennifer Cardy, and given a further life sentence, with a minimum of 25 years to be served - his lawyer offered nothing in mitigation.

Black served part of his sentence as a high security prisoner at HMP Wakefield, and was later transferred to HM Prison Maghaberry, in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. He died of a heart attack at Maghaberry in 2016, aged 68 - no family or friends attended his funeral.