Moira’s sister fears search scale back

The sister of tragic Scots schoolgirl Moira Anderson is scared police will scale back on the search for her body after her suspected killer was identified.

Prosecutors have named paedophile bus driver Alexander Gartshore as the man they believe murdered 11-year-old Moira 57 years ago.

They said new evidence provided by witnesses following a high-profile cold case review had provided enough evidence to bring a case against him to court had he still been alive.

However, while she is grateful for the development, Moira’s sister Janet Hart said she fears the search for Moira will now be scaled back.

Speaking from her home in Australia, she said: “It does give me some comfort to have him named and, now that it’s out in the open, a lot of doubters who did not believe must realise there are no ifs and buts.

“It’s something we’ve known for a long time, but it’s good to have it made legal and I think Frank Mulholland, the Crown Office and the cold case unit should be applauded.

“My gut feeling is they are going to close or scale back the case and although I don’t want to sound ungrateful, we still want Moira to be found.”

Prosecutors believe Gartshore abducted Moira from the bus he drove before sexually assaulting her, killing her and then hiding her body.

A new witness told how as a child they saw Gartshore drag Moira by the arms on February 23, 1957 the day she disappeared in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire. He died a free man in 2006 aged 85. However, the fight to expose his crimes went on with a campaign fronted by his own daughter Sandra Brown.

Belief in his guilt was also strengthened when his friend and fellow paedophile, James Gallogley, named him as the killer in 1999. He claimed he, Gartshore and a third man abused Moira at a local bus depot after drugging her with chloroform but claimed her death was an accident.

Police exhumed a grave in Coatbridge last year in a fruitless search for Moira’s remains. Sandra Brown believes the media attention that followed the exhumation led to a surge in new witnesses but revealed not all were credible.

She said: “Someone went into Coatbridge Police station wishing to make a confession and a woman called our charity, the Moira Anderson Foundation, claiming to actually be Moira. It turned out she had serious mental health issues.”

She also said she is angry police missed opportunities to convict her father when he lived in Leeds.

She said: “It’s galling to think I approached the authorities in 1992 and while I hadn’t suffered sexual abuse from my dad, several of my cousins had. We were articulate women, but we didn’t get our day in court. I think, had he been brought north relating to my cousins, things might have been different.”

Janet, who believes she was also attacked by Gartshore as a child, said: “It would have been nice to have received an apology from the police for the incompetency of the past, but I can’t criticise the current team in any way whatsoever.”

However, she said she lives in hope Moira’s remains will one day be found.

She said: “I do believe Gartshore would have told others what he had done with Moira and all we can hope for now is someone coming to the end of their life who knows and wants to get it off their shoulders.”