Murder of Lesley Molseed - Case Reopened

Case Reopened

For eight years Kiszko's mother was ignored and stonewalled by both politicians, including Prime Ministers James Callaghan (1976 to 1979) and Margaret Thatcher (from 1979), and by the legal system. In 1984 she contacted JUSTICE, the UK human rights organisation which at the time investigated many miscarriages of justice. Three years later, she was also then put in touch with solicitor Campbell Malone, who agreed to take a look at the case when it seemed almost certain that Kiszko would never be released.

Malone consulted Philip Clegg, who had been Waddington's junior at the July 1976 trial. Clegg had expressed his own doubts about the confession and conviction at the time, and over the next two years, Clegg and Malone prepared a petition to the Home Secretary. The draft was finally ready to be sent on 26 October 1989. On the same day, by coincidence, a new Home Secretary was announced: David Waddington. Sixteen months passed before a police investigation into the conduct of the original trial began. Waddington resigned as Home Secretary in November 1990 to take up a peerage and to serve as Leader of the House of Lords. He was replaced by Kenneth Baker.

In February 1991 Campbell Malone, with the help of a private detective named Peter Jackson finally urged the Home Office to reopen the case, which was then referred back to West Yorkshire Police. Detective Superintendent Trevor Wilkinson was assigned to the job. He immediately found several glaring errors. Kiszko's innocence was demonstrated conclusively through medical evidence; he had male hypogonadism, which rendered him infertile, contradicting forensic evidence obtained at the time of the murder. In 1975 his testes had measured 4 to 5 mm, whereas the average male testicular size was 15 to 20 mm. During his research, Jackson found someone who said correctly that Kiszko had been seen with his aunt tending his father's grave on the day the murder took place. They said they could not understand why they had not been called to give evidence at the trial. Someone else said that Kisko had been in a shop around the time of the murder.

Also in February 1991 the four girls involved in the court trial admitted that the evidence they had given, which had led to Kiszko's arrest and conviction, was false and that they had lied for "a laugh" and because "At the time it was funny". Burke said she wished she had not said anything but refused to apologise, saying she did not think it would have gone as far as it did. Buckley said it was not Kiszko who had exposed himself to her and had not been stalking them, but that they had seen a taxi driver (not Ronald Castree) urinating behind a bush on the day of Molseed's murder. She also refused to apologise. Brown refused to make a statement. Hind was the most remorseful of the four, and said what they did was "Foolish but we were young" and had she appeared in court, she would have told the truth about Kiszko and not perjured herself, unlike her friends who committed perjury. She herself did not think Kiszko would be convicted.

In August 1991, the new findings in Kiszko's case were referred to Kenneth Baker, who immediately passed them on to the Court of Appeal. On 8 January 1992, Kiszko was moved from Ashworth to Prestwich Hospital.