It was a sharp-eyed member of the public who gave Hector Clark the breakthrough he needed in his highprofile manhunt for a child killer. In July 1990 a retired postmaster was tending his garden in the village of Stow, in the Scottish borders, when he saw a young girl being bundled into a blue Transit van. As the driver sped off, he noted the vehicle’s number plate. Police officers arrived within minutes.
Robert Black, a long-distance lorry driver originally from Grangemouth, made it easy for them. After sexually assaulting the six-year-old in a layby two miles away, he drove back through Stow and was spotted by the retired postmaster, who cried: “That’s him. That’s the same van.” The child’s father, one of the officers called to the scene, was among those who threw themselves in front of the van. Huddled in the back was his distraught daughter, her mouth bound and gagged with sticking plaster and a hood tied over her head.
Clark, a talented detective who by then was second in command of Lothian and Borders police, had been working on the child murders for seven years. Black’s first known victim was Jennifer Cardy, 9, from Ballinderry, Co Antrim, in 1981; his second was Susan Maxwell, 11, from Cornhill-on-Tweed, just on the English side of the Scottish border; the third was Caroline Hogg, 5, who disappeared outside her home in the Portobello area of Edinburgh and whose body was found in the Midlands. At first, only the last two were linked. In 1986 another child, Sarah Harper, 10, was kidnapped near Leeds and murdered. Clark’s investigation, which now involved six police forces, moved into a hub in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, becoming one of the most costly of the 20th century.
Although there was no forensic or direct evidence to link Black to the murders, Clark’s team spent countless hours tracing the driver’s movements through petrol receipts and other expenses. Clark interviewed Black two days after his arrest, later recalling his gut feeling. “I knew it was our man,” he said. “I knew by his appearances and even his smell. I sensed, with all my senses, that this was him.” In August 1990 Black was jailed for life at Edinburgh High Court for the abduction and sexual assault at Stow.
Clark retired on his 60th birthday in 1994, but insisted on being in Newcastle crown court six weeks later to see the judge, Sir William Macpherson, impose a life sentence on Black for the murders of Susan Maxwell, Caroline Hogg and Sarah Harper. As he was taken down from the dock, Black turned to the detectives he had foiled for so long and said mockingly: “Well done, boys”.
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At a subsequent trial in 2011 Black was also convicted of Jennifer Cardy’s murder. Police believe that he may have committed between up to ten other child murders both in the UK and mainland Europe. He died behind bars in 2016.
Hector Goodfellow Clark was born in Felton, Northumberland, in 1934, the son of George Clark and his wife Katherine (née Robson). As a child he enjoyed football and briefly considered turning professional. Instead, after National Service with the RAF he joined Northumberland County Constabulary in 1955. Two years later he married Anne Staveley, a nurse. She predeceased him and he is survived by their son, Andrew; his granddaughter recently joined Northumbria police cadets.
Clark quickly rose through the ranks to become head of Northumbria CID and eventually assistant chief constable. He was proud that every murder investigation he worked on led to someone being charged. In 1983 he was chosen to coordinate the multiforce investigation into the child murders, working under both Scottish and English law. During his time on the case he was appointed deputy to Sir William Sutherland at Lothian and Borders police.
Away from the hunt for the child killer, Clark was involved in a programme of police computerisation. After criticism of how the hunt for Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, had relied on a manual card filing system that became overwhelmed, Clark moved the 500,000 cards relating to the Susan Maxwell case alone on to the police’s new £250,000 Holmes technology system. While this alone did not solve the crime, it did resolve several unrelated cases.
Clark was a hands-on detective, known for his personal approach and leadership skills. “Hector was incredibly persuasive and got partner police forces to contribute and come together,” a former colleague recalled. “He never wrote a letter or made a phone call where he could meet a person face to face. He was very good at delegating and had confidence in people.”
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In the early 1990s Clark became caught up in the “Fettesgate” scandal, which came about after rumours of a “magic circle” of judges, sheriffs and advocates conspiring to protect gay criminals. A report on the subject was stolen from police headquarters at Fettes. However, a subsequent QC-led inquiry dismissed the claims. In October 1992 Clark apologised to Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, a Scottish Office minister and former lord advocate of Scotland, who had threatened to sue for slander after remarks Clark made about him in connection with Fettesgate at Tynecastle football ground.
Clark, who lived in Whitley Bay, went on to publish his account of the hunt for Black in Fear the Stranger (1994, with David Johnston), which also told the story of 13 other murder cases he investigated during his career. Asked about his feelings towards the most notorious killer he helped to convict, he told a television interviewer: “Black is a man of the most evil kind, but no longer important to me. I care not about him.”
Hector Clark, QPM, OBE, detective, was born on April 4, 1934. He died on April 5, 2021, aged 87