Page 98 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

Again, there was no trace. Mr Haddon later said that he feared that John
might have been knocked off his bike and could be lying injured in a hospital
bed or the huge park, which would have been dark by about 5pm in the late
autumn.

A call to the park keeper meant the gates could be unlocked and a search
of the 2,400-acre park began. Police and volunteers from the local Round
Table began in torchlight and lasted until 1am when it was called off until first
light.

After Mr Haddon and wife Diane spent the night despairing, the hunt
resumed but was brought to a shuddering halt by a sudden and devastating
announcement. The naked body of a boy had been found in Fenny Drayton,
Leicestershire, and the search became a murder inquiry.

The same day, his bike was found in undergrowth near Bedworth, near
Coventry. Detectives were certain that they were hunting a dangerous
paedophile and set about examining the pasts of known perverts in the area
as well carrying out forensic tests on John’s body and the bike.

It was not long until they had their breakthrough.

Former police officer Alan Meakin found a depressed Corrigan in the grounds
of a children’s home on Chester Road in Sutton Coldfield the day after John’s
body had been found. Corrigan had failed to kill himself by connecting
mains electricity to a bath full of water and began to pour his heart out to Mr
Meakin, who was working as a superintendent at the home.

When Corrigan confessed that he had previous convictions for sex offences,
the ex-officer’s instincts told him that he was the man who was wanted for
John’s death. He also remembered that had seen Corrigan, along with his
young apprentice, a few weeks earlier trying to peer through the home’s
windows at a swimming lesson. Mr Meakin managed to detain Corrigan, who
was wearing nothing but a soaking anorak, until police arrived.

During his ninth interview by detectives Corrigan said: “I did it because I have
wanted to for years. I have read about it, thought about it and written about
it.” McInnes was quickly implicated and horrifying details of the ordeal that
John endured in his final hours began to unfold.
He had been repeatedly stabbed with a hunting knife in what was described
as a “Satanic fury”.

Police made a sinister discovery at the home of Corrigan – an oil painting
portrait of a schoolboy wearing almost exactly the same uniform that John
was dressed in when he was snatched. Hundreds of other photographs and
newspaper clippings featuring young boys adorned the walls of the property. Page98