Page 97 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

read the contents of the file, a sick feeling of immense sadness swept over
me. What follows is an edited compilation of the media articles.

TWISTED Paul Corrigan was obsessed with acting out his perverted fantasy of
kidnapping, raping and ultimately killing a young boy. During long days lying
in his bunk at Maidstone Prison, he wrote a chilling 250-page manuscript
about the abduction and killing of a teenager.

To the predator though, this was no horror story – but a meticulous plan he
was determined to act out down to the final letter. The victim could have
been any Birmingham schoolboy, but it was the grave misfortune of 13-year-
old John Haddon that he should cross paths with a career paedophile who
had sex and death on his mind.

Nothing marked John out as any different to other lads his age at Bishop
Vesey Grammar School – except for perhaps the way he travelled to school.
Photographs from the family album taken not long before his killing show
John smiling as he sits astride a shining new bike. He would ride the Raleigh
Record each day on the 20-minute journey to and from school from his home
in Streetly.

The route took him along the quiet and secluded roads of Sutton Park where
he was safe from traffic. Corrigan had been released from prison in late 1980
after serving four years of a seven-year term for abducting a young boy.

After being freed, he obsessed with carrying out such a crime from his home
in Kingstanding while he worked at a chip shop. Prison authorities were aware
of the document he had written and passed round to cell mates – but still
they cleared him for release.

He recruited Coventry teenager Derek McInnes – later said to have become
totally dominated by his older accomplice – to help him. For weeks, the pair
stalked schools and children’s homes and even carried out a “dress
rehearsal” of the abduction before they struck on a Friday afternoon as John
was heading home after lessons.

What happened in the park will only be known by the victim and his two
attackers.
By early evening, the fair-haired boy who was waved off by his parents and
returned home every day for his tea like clockwork had simply vanished. His
father, also called John, began to worry immediately, such was the reliable
nature of his son.

He rang the school and later headed down there only to be told by
headmaster John Harvey that he was not there. Perhaps he could have
been at a neighbouring school where a chess match was taking place. Page97