'Another murder may have been avoided if police had acted on Elsie Frost information' inquest told

The sister of murdered Wakefield school Elsie Frost said another murder may have been avoided if police had listened to information.
Elsie FrostElsie Frost
Elsie Frost

Elsie's older sister Anne Cleave told an inquest those crimes "may not have happened" had the police in West Yorkshire in 1965 acted information about Peter Pickering, who later was convicted of murdering Shirley Bold.

An inquest into Elsie's death opened today (Monday, November 18).Anne, who was 18 at the time of the murder, said she had major concerns about the lack of action for almost 50 years after a suspect at the time, Ian Spencer, was formally acquitted.

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She said: "After Mr Spencer was released, my sister's case went into limbo and nothing happened.

"Peter Pickering's name had already been mentioned as a file had been sent up from Scotland Yard.

"Pickering then goes on to commit other crimes, such as the 1972 kidnap and rape and the murder of Shirley Boldy.

"If things had gone the way they should have done in 1965, those murders may never have happened.

"I am very angry that nothing happened."

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Anne said she was "very close" to her sister and her death hit the family hard.

She added: "My father completely went into a shell. He wouldn't talk about Elsie at all.

"My mother wanted to talk about her and the only time she could talk about Elsie was with me.

"Dad was pretty much destroyed by what happened.

"There are no words to describe the effect it had on me.

"We were very close as sisters, we were both great readers because dad encouraged that.

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"He would take us both to the library together. We had similar interests in books, film and music."

Anne revealed that on the day Elsie had died, she had been to visit her and her young son, Martin.

She added: "On the morning she died, she had been into town and done errands for mum and she came to see me.

"She gave my son Martin his late morning meal and then had a last cuddle - as it came to be - and she was gone."