Cop saves own daughter from child killer
Jason P
'My little girl was in back of van'
Mirror 02/12/01
THE POLICEMAN who caught child-killer Robert Black has revealed how he
saved his own daughter from the clutches of the evil paedophile.
PC Ian Turnbull arrested Black in 1990 for the kidnap of a six-year-old
girl in the Borders.
The arrest eventually led to Black being convicted for the murders of
three girls - Caroline Hogg, Susan Maxwell and Sarah Harper. He got 10
life sentences in 1994. But the little girl PC Turnbull found bound,
gagged and hooded in the back of a van in 1990 was his own child.
PC Turnbull, 46, reveals his secret in a documentary to be shown on
December 11.
He has asked for his daughter's christian name to be withheld.
PC Turnbull tells how he was on duty in Kelso, 12 miles from his home at
Stow, when he received a call about a kidnapped child.
As the constable raced back Black, then 47, had taken the six-year-old
to a lay-by outside the village.
He tied up the girl and was driving back through Stow when he was
caught.
PC Turnbull said: "When I got there, a local man, David Herkes, told me
what had happened.
"Then David shouted and pointed to the van, saying: 'That's the same
van,' as Black came back.
"I ran in front of it, stopping it. I managed to get into the back of
the van and I was shouting out her name, looking for her.
"There was what appeared to be a bundle of rags that was moving.
"I stopped briefly as I was worried about what else I was going to
find."
The PC's little girl was in a sleeping bag.
He went on: "When I got her out of the sleeping bag, I found her bound
with her hands tied with cord behind her back, she had been gagged with
tape and she had a hood over her face.
"She was petrified. Her face had swollen in the heat. She was red and
sweating."
Doctors said the girl was within an hour of death.
Black had been stalking a girl in Stow for four hours but the girl's dog
attacked him. As he retreated he pounced on the PC's girl.
But he was seen by retired postmaster David Herkes.
PC Turnbull arrested Black eight years after Susan Maxwell was murdered.
A month later, in August 1990, he was jailed for life for the abduction
and police began to unravel his past.
BLACK, Manhunt: Catching A Child Killer is screened on ITV at 10.20pm,
December 11.
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