Cold Case UK Season 1 Episode 4

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Cold Case UK Season 1 Episode 4 Cold Case UK (2025) Season 1 Episode 4 - Murder in the Den   #ColdCaseUK #RealityInsightHub   🎞 Please subscribe to our official channel to watch the full movie for free, as soon as possible. ❤️Reality Insight Hub❤️ 👉 Official Channel: https://www.dailymotion.com/TrailerBolt 👉 THANK YOU ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Transcript

00:01Preston, Lancashire.

00:03Nine-year-old Imran Vora is on his way home from school,

00:06but seemingly vanishes into thin air.

00:10Normally, Imran would walk home from school with his friends.

00:13He said that he wasn't going to walk home with them that day

00:15because he was waiting to meet somebody.

00:18Alarm bells are raised, and police begin an extensive community search.

00:23Just two days later, hidden in the bushes of a local farm,

00:27Imran's lifeless body is discovered by a member of the search party.

00:31He has been raped and strangled.

00:34He was naked with the exception of a shirt,

00:37and he had a shoelace around his neck.

00:40People were frightened for their own children

00:42when such a devious murderer was on the list.

00:46When nobody knows who's done it,

00:48I suppose everybody's a suspect, aren't they?

00:51For over 20 years, police continued to try and track down the killer at large,

00:56but with minimal technology and no new leads, the case goes cold.

01:01Everything that they could have done, they would have done, and they did.

01:06It would have seemed that the investigation had exhausted itself at that point.

01:11Imran's murder had never been solved, but it had never been forgotten.

01:15The police will always keep a case open, especially something as serious as this.

01:20One day, somebody's gonna put a foot wrong, somebody's gonna put a foot out of line,

01:24and one day, they're gonna have the answers that they've been looking for for so many years.

01:29She she's done a joke.

01:31She's done a few years ago.

01:32She's done a few years ago.

01:33It's been the same, and it's been the same.

01:34She's done a few years ago.

01:35And the other day, she's done an ex킴.

01:37Preston is a historic city located on the River Ribble. It's renowned for its industrial

01:56heritage and green spaces such as Avernham Park.

02:01The city of Preston is in the north-west of England. It is a city made up of primarily

02:06working class districts and it is a multicultural community made up of different faiths and cultures.

02:15Avernham is an area on the outskirts of Preston. It's fairly close to the city centre. It's

02:20a very working class urban area and there's quite a lot of council housing, tower blocks

02:26there. It's very much an inner city type of area. The main focal point of it is Avernham

02:35Park which is an old Victorian park. Avernham Park is a wide open space, lots of greenery,

02:43shrubbery. There's an old tram bridge. The river runs through it. Lots of pathways that people

02:48can walk along. It does attract lots of young people, families going for weekends, joggers,

02:54dog walkers, bike riders, all that kind of stuff. It was opened in 1861. It's always been there

03:00for the local community and it did get used by that community. They have events there

03:05every now and again and it is a real attraction for people from the north-west of England and

03:09certainly those that visit Preston. It's a diverse community. There's a significant Asian community

03:18there. The white community had the Muslim community. There's a significant Afro-Caribbean

03:22community in Preston as well. Close-knit community. People get on, help each other. Average crime rate,

03:28nothing special at all. In the 1980s, Avernham was really quite run down. A lot of the old grand houses had

03:36been converted into bedsits. There was a little bit of a slightly transient element to the community.

03:46It was quite deprived really. It wasn't certainly the nicest part of town in those days.

03:55In 1985, Avernham is home to Imran Vora and his family. He is only nine years of age.

04:02He went to Frenchwood Primary School. He had friends. He was quite quiet and was quite a good boy. Probably

04:11wanted to please his parents and he would go to mosque after school and do all the things that his parents

04:16would have hoped him to do. He was a bright young lad and very popular. Had lots of friends but sometimes he could be quite reserved.

04:26So all that you would expect of a nine-year-old child, he fitted the mould perfectly.

04:3511th of July, 1985. It is an ordinary Thursday in school for Imran and his classmates.

04:43The bell rang at 3.15. Imran left class with his friends as he normally would and

04:48he stopped behind to play marbles with a couple of the other children.

04:54Now normally, Imran would walk home from school with his friends but on this particular day he said

04:59that he wasn't going to walk home with them that day because he was waiting to meet somebody

05:03and he stayed back by himself.

05:11Imran was due to attend lessons at the local mosque at 5pm that evening. Imran, however, did not show up.

05:20When he didn't arrive at the mosque, alarm bells were raised because that's something that he

05:25traditionally did. That was a place that he went to to worship.

05:29By 9pm that night, his family had understandably started to panic because it's one thing Imran not

05:36attending his lessons at the local mosque, it's another when he isn't coming home at all.

05:41It was at that point that they decided that they were going to call the police and report him missing.

05:55Imran's parents report his disappearance to Lancashire police,

05:58who quickly launch a missing persons case for the missing child.

06:03A child going missing is always a real high priority for the police, so if they receive a call at nine

06:09o'clock at night that there's a child who's not been seen since the end of school, they're going

06:13to be straight on it, they're going to be having people out there looking for this little boy.

06:20When the report came in from Imran's parents, police will make a missing persons file and they

06:26will start to make enquiries within the locality. So they will look at house-to-house enquiries,

06:33they will look at visiting Imran's friends, family, associates and even his parents' family,

06:38see if they've seen him all. They're probably hoping that he was with a friend and just lost

06:43track of time, something like that. The police would have taken this seriously because it's a

06:46nine-year-old boy, gone missing from home completely unexpectedly.

06:52He's very young, possibly very naive, so certainly from a police response it would be,

06:58you know, automatic. If we got a call these days and certainly back in the 1980s it would cause

07:04masses of concern. It would be very much like all hands to the pump, you know, whatever resources

07:09that we could use to go and find that little boy. The very next day, Friday the 12th of July,

07:16a full-scale search takes place.

07:22Straight away, this investigation and search is taken extremely seriously. You have a huge army of

07:29volunteers of people belonging to Imran's family, his friends, people just belonging to the general

07:36public and the local community who assist the police, not only in their enquiries but in searching for Imran.

07:46The police immediately start to do house-to-house enquiries. They start asking people if they had seen

07:52Imran, if they knew Imran, they went around the Evenham and other areas of Preston in police cars

07:59with loudspeakers making appeals both in English and in the Urdu language for the local Asian community.

08:06Police were taking this very seriously and they were doing everything they could to try and find the child.

08:12Given the fact that Evenham Park was so close, that would be a natural point to search.

08:18They would have been looking to search all the footpaths and the shrubbery on either side.

08:25They'd have considered looking in the river underwater search units. They still had them in the 80s.

08:31And they would have been putting together a search plan so there's no stone unturned.

08:40Like a lot of children in that area, Imran loved Evenham Park. It's a really great bit of outdoor space.

08:48There's lots of little hidey places, loads of places where you can play and he used to like

08:53to build dens in the park. He had quite a few dens in various little spots around Evenham Park.

09:01The police would have organised the searchers amongst lines of people and they would have been

09:06tasked to slowly and diligently make their way through the park and they would have been looking

09:11for any clue, any detail, anything that could be related to Imran. It could be a piece of discarded clothing,

09:18it could be something belonging to Imran, it could be something belonging to a child,

09:21something that may be relevant.

09:26The search for schoolboy Imran Vora continues until darkness and then begins again at 5am the next day.

09:33Just 40 minutes later, a community searcher makes a grim and tragic discovery.

09:47One of those community searchers found Imran in some undergrowth in what was one of his dens.

09:54The missing persons case is now tragically ruled a homicide. Investigators begin to process the scene,

10:04hoping to collect any evidence that may point them in the direction of Imran's killer. With a deadly and

10:10dangerous predator at large, they need to act fast, in case the killer is planning to strike again.

10:15One of those community searchers found out in the city of Imran Vora.

10:27Saturday, the 13th of July, 1985. After nearly two days of searching for missing nine-year-old schoolboy

10:35Imran Vora, his body is found hidden in the bushes of Avernham Park. Investigators have ruled this case

10:42as a homicide and the team begin to secure the scene. When that person found Imran, essentially,

10:49everything would stop. The search would stop. They would record the names and details of everybody

10:55on the search. They certainly would have taken statements from the people that found him or the

11:00person that found him. And that scene would then have been locked, locked down completely. They'd have

11:05had cord and tape around a wide area to make sure that they could maximise their search efforts.

11:12Imran was found by a member of the community and the shock that that person must have felt is

11:19just heartbreaking. It's... To want to go and to want to support a search like that is one thing,

11:26but everybody that goes into something like that is going to be hoping that they're not going to make

11:32a discovery like what that person did that day. When they found Imran, he was naked with the exception of a

11:40shirt and he had what appeared to be a shoelace around his neck. There were signs that he'd been sexually

11:47assaulted and he'd been killed and his trousers were tied to a tree nearby. Perhaps it was left there by the

11:56offender so that someone would see it and find the body sooner. Police immediately swing into action and

12:04they close and cordon off the entire of Avon and Park and they go through it doing a fingertip search

12:11leading to the area where Imran is found dead. They're looking for any kind of forensic clues that may

12:18assist them in their investigation. Imran's body is now considered to be crucial evidence in itself

12:24and a post-mortem is carried out as soon as possible. When a post-mortem occurs it's carried out by a home

12:33office pathologist. They are highly skilled in understanding the anatomy. They are highly trained

12:44in identifying causes of death and they will do an external examination of the victim and then they

12:52will do an internal examination of the victim and they will take samples from different parts of the

13:00body. They did find a sample of semen on Imran. DNA in 1985 was very much in its infancy it was very much

13:13in the initial beginning stages. It is a credit to Lancashire police and the detectives of the time

13:20that they had the foresight to properly keep all of the forensic material for further examination

13:27further down the line. The cause of death was asphyxiation. What they found was that he'd actually

13:33been strangled with his shoelaces. Now that the autopsy is complete and the cause of death has been

13:40determined. Police take a more in-depth look at the evidence collected at the crime scene.

13:47Back in the 1980s fingerprints and fibers were very prevalent in terms of the police collecting

13:54evidence. As we know now DNA is massively used and you know it's a real big enhancement to any

14:00investigation but back then it was very much like the basics fingerprints. In addition a lot of the

14:05evidence was obtained by speaking to witnesses by speaking to suspects and to speaking to victims as

14:12well to to conjure up that picture. The priority would be getting out and banging on doors that was one

14:19good thing that the police could do in those early days is banging on doors speaking to people speaking

14:25to witnesses who's possibly seen something you know and these witnesses will be told that any information

14:31they could provide could be vital. Some people think sometimes that the tiniest bit of information

14:37isn't worth mentioning but if you can imagine a jigsaw puzzle if everybody puts a piece of information or

14:43a piece into that jigsaw it builds up a bigger picture. So very much within the early days certainly

14:49you know the early couple of days police would be banging on as many doors as they can speaking to

14:55people as witnesses but also trying to see if anybody's a suspect or there's anybody that they are

15:01slightly concerned about that would kind of you know raise suspicions or anybody's been acting

15:06suspiciously in that area at that time. When you get all of these accounts from people

15:17what's common is you put a timeline together and you work through the timeline it gives you

15:22a sequence of events as the day unfolds and that is really commonplace in investigations. In 1980

15:31it would have been harder at times to corroborate that because there wasn't the CCTV, there wasn't the

15:37cameras, there wasn't the stuff that you know we have an abundance of these days. So the Senior

15:43Investigating Officer and his team they would have been looking at all of these sightings putting it

15:49together trying to work out the sequence of events and they would have treated some of them with

15:54caution because people want to give you information with the best intentions and it might not be

15:59accurate but it is always better that people do talk to you and as a police officer you listen to them.

16:09To start piecing together the timeline of Imran's movements on Thursday 11th of July, the day he

16:14disappeared investigators look to seek out any information they can about the person he was

16:20due to meet after school that afternoon. At 3 30 pm a friend of Imran asks him if he's ready to go home

16:29Imran stands outside the school gate and replies that no he's going to hang around for a bit because

16:35he's waiting for someone but he doesn't say who that someone is. The child saying he was staying

16:44back to meet somebody you would naturally ask who that somebody was. I know nowadays if a child of

16:52that age was expecting somebody different to collect them from school the school would want to know

16:56and would want to have been told by the parents that this person had been approved but times have changed.

17:02Shortly after this a female school friend of Imran's sees him standing outside the school gate

17:10and she describes a tall Asian male with dark hair shouting over to Imran as if he knew him.

17:20This man was described as being in his twenties between five foot ten and six foot tall and the school

17:27girl thought she saw Imran and the man walk away together.

17:34About 4 pm somebody reported that they'd seen a little boy on Avonham Lane who was crying and

17:41they described the coat that he was wearing they said it was a brown and beige anorak with a red stripe

17:47on it which is the same as the coat that Imran was wearing on the day they went missing.

17:51The police thought that this was someone who Imran knew. It was someone that Imran had some sort of prior

18:01relationship with so they were clearly keen to trace and eliminate or else bring further into the inquiry

18:09this particular individual. But that individual was never positively identified at that time.

18:17Later at 4.15 pm further along Avonham Lane a passing motorist saw a boy who matched Imran's description

18:30walking along with a scruffy man described as being in his bodies. They were walking in the direction of

18:37Avonham Park. At 4.30 pm a woman is walking through Avonham Park. She'd seen a little boy that matched

18:46Imran's description and she turned around and when she turned to look again he disappeared. He was nowhere to be seen.

18:54There was a witness about a week before had said this in a middle-aged man in Avonham Park with a young

19:01Asian boy. That was a keen line of inquiry for the inquiry team at the time. There was no suggestion that

19:11that that was Imran. But looking at everything in the round, do you have a person who is targeting a number of

19:19young Asian boys? So that would have been a real critical line of inquiry and a high priority action for the SIO at the time.

19:25So you had a number of sightings, you had a number of witness reports, you had a number of individuals

19:33that day or prior to that day who had been in the company of what was described as an Asian boy and

19:39police were keen to discover if that was Imran and who were these people that he was in the company with.

19:46Some sex offenders engage in what I would call psychological coercion. What that means is

19:52grooming. They get the trust of the child in some way, they then persist with that, they've gained

19:57the trust and then they begin to offend and they may build it up slowly from lower level sexual offending

20:02to more extreme offending. The fact that Imran was found dead in his own den, somewhere he'd played,

20:07somewhere he felt safe, suggests that what may have been happening there is psychological grooming,

20:12manipulation, getting Imran to trust him so that he might go somewhere private with him.

20:19That manipulation is really evident due to that location.

20:24With the evidence and timeline information around Imran's death

20:28failing to provide leads on a suspect, investigators need to cast the net even wider in search of the

20:33killer. They will have been looking at non-sex offenders in the area, they will have been speaking

20:40to them, recording their whereabouts, any alibis, and they need to be challenging the alibis.

20:46They'll have been doing house to house inquiries. A stranger murder of a nine year old boy

20:51who had been raped and strangled to death. That, that was huge news.

20:59This case caused tremendous tremors of shock, not just throughout Preston, but throughout the nation.

21:06It was a nationwide case that grabbed the headline. It was just shocking how little boy walking home

21:13from school could be attacked and murdered in such a brutal way.

21:20When nobody knows who's done it, I suppose everybody's a suspect, aren't they?

21:25You've got these communities living side by side and looking and, you know, is it, is it one of our own?

21:33Is it somebody else? Is it somebody that knew Imran? Is it a stranger?

21:41They interviewed 6,000 people, took two and a half thousand statements. Everything that they could have done,

21:47they would have done. And they did. It would have seemed that the investigation had exhausted itself at that point.

21:54The police were under, no doubt, huge pressure to solve this crime.

21:59The case, whilst never being closed, unfortunately began to go cold. The police inquiry, without any

22:08further leads or information coming in, had to be scaled down and resources put elsewhere.

22:14People would still have remembered the case and people would have talked about it from time to time,

22:19but, inevitably, it may have started to fade a little bit from people's memories.

22:34In Lancashire, England, July 1985, the body of nine-year-old Imran Vora is found hidden in the local park.

22:47He has been sexually assaulted and murdered. Investigators pour numerous hours and resources

22:53into trying to find the perpetrator, but the case eventually goes cold.

22:5916 years later, his killer's identity remains unknown.

23:06Imran's murder had never been solved, but it had never been forgotten. It was always very close to the

23:12minds of the people of Preston. It was always a name that people knew, a story that people knew. There was

23:19this unsolved murder of this little boy. Whilst the case does go cold, it is very common for the

23:26police to remain in contact, semi-regular contact with the family, to let them know that they haven't

23:32forgotten about them, that they haven't given up, and that they still are keen to solve this crime.

23:37As the years go by, it is perfectly normal for a cold case to be revisited, especially with young blood,

23:52new blood of police detectives, who are tasked often with reviewing these cases. And in 2001,

23:58Imran Vora's murder is one of those such cases.

24:00The police, with the advancements in DNA technology, decided that they were going

24:08to try the DNA again. Obviously, there was a lot more that they could do then than in the 1980s.

24:14Everything is going over again with a new pair of eyes. People are spoken to again, and the semen

24:22stain that was found at the scene of the crime is developed, and they find a partial DNA profile in

24:292002. They looked over the witness reports, again the witness statements, and they found that a friend

24:37of Imran had told the police that Imran, before he had died, had made a new friend, and that this friend

24:43could speak German. This is a vital breakthrough. To even have a partial DNA profile is a major advance

24:54on what was achievable 17 years earlier. But to also have the distinguishing feature of a German

25:00speaker gives the investigative team renewed hope. As part of the cold case review, police also,

25:08once again, make a renewed appeal. They were really appealing to the public for names and for information,

25:14because they were confident that they could either eliminate a suspect or bring them further into the

25:18inquiry. Investigators use the advancements in DNA technology to rule out the original persons of

25:25interest. A decision was taken to take samples from 60 individuals within Preston, people who'd been in

25:33the original investigation. They've now got some kind of profile, and they can get a profile of these 60

25:40people, and not all of them were suspects. Some they will have wanted to eliminate, and some they will have

25:45wanted to implicate if there was a forensic match. It probably closed off a few avenues for people

25:54who were under suspicion by the wider community. One chap, very sadly, who was considered to be involved

26:03and was accused by a number of people in the community, took his own life. The coroner actually

26:09said that taking his own life was probably caused by people suspected of being involved in Imran's murder.

26:16He left a note saying he wasn't.

26:22But sometimes in communities, if a person is spoken to by the police, some people, and it often happens

26:29on social media, some people put two and two together and come up with five, and then whilst that person

26:36might have been doing a routine inquiry, some people in the community spin it and say they are a suspect.

26:42And then that gathers momentum. It's a plague for the person that's being accused. And in this case,

26:49this particular individual was being accused. He was a drinker, and he couldn't take it anymore.

26:58It is not only Imran's blood on the killer's hands, but also the life of an entirely innocent

27:03member of the community who has been driven to suicide. With the new advanced DNA techniques at

27:09their disposal, police double their efforts. Following the cold case review for the next

27:17several years, over 1400 men were DNA tested to see if it could be linked to the crime scene,

27:23and if Imran's killer could be unmasked. But unfortunately, that got the police nowhere at

27:29that time. DNA profiling continues to progress, and in 2009, Detective Sergeant Jeff Hurst and his team

27:44have a major breakthrough. In 2009, I had been given responsibility for a cold case team in the

27:52Lancashire Constabulary. And it was fairly new. There'd been another DI before me who'd had it for a period of time.

28:02There was a huge government funding for cold cases around the sexual offence agenda.

28:09And I took up the role with my team to progress outstanding cases. And we had a number of cases on

28:20the go. And I remember having a discussion with my head of crime, and he said, I want you to put a lot

28:27of effort into trying to detect the murder of Imran. It's really important. You know, he's a nine-year-old boy.

28:35It was my job to make sure that we did that, but we also struck the balance and made sure that other

28:40victims' cases were being pursued as well. And that's what we did. We had a small team, but they

28:47were all hugely dedicated.

28:52We identified that the genes that had been put in the tree where Imran was murdered, there was semen

28:58on those as well. And a few samples had been taken previously and hadn't been a success. But we were

29:05told that the science had progressed and advanced significantly. So we asked, was it feasible to

29:13take another sample from the genes and see if we could get a full profile? And the scientists

29:18went away and did that and came back and said, we've got a full profile.

29:21The full DNA profile belonging to the killer is submitted into the national DNA database.

29:29If you commit a serious crime, your DNA can be taken. It's generally a mouth swab that's taken,

29:35and then that is uploaded onto the database. It's a way that scientists and investigators can use

29:41to link offenders to crime scenes and to crimes.

29:45And that was done, but there was no match. At that point, I was thinking, am I going to be in the

29:53the same bracket as the others who have reviewed it and not had any success? And whilst it wasn't

30:01brand new, it was fairly new and certainly new to me at the time, someone mentioned the familial DNA

30:08process. Familial DNA testing. This is whereby entire families of people each have their own

30:17individual code of DNA, but as relatives, as blood relatives, each DNA code has a number of similarities

30:25with each other. So what that means is that when the police and the national DNA database find a

30:32similar profile, they basically take that similar profile of that person and do a family tree around

30:37them. And they do that hoping that they find amongst their relatives, whether it be their fathers,

30:43their brothers, their uncles, their grandfathers, whatever it may be, that they find the actual perpetrator.

30:52Scientists did their work and eventually came back to me and said,

30:58we've got a list of people that might be linked to your offender who killed Imran through DNA.

31:10And that list was hundreds and hundreds of people long.

31:16While DNA advancements have opened up new avenues for the investigation,

31:20they have also widened the pool of suspects. Investigators must now make their way through the

31:26hundreds of possible familial matches in the hopes that one of them could lead to Imran's killer.

31:44Preston, Lancashire. The rape and murder of nine-year-old schoolboy Imran Vora has now been unsolved

31:50for 24 years, but is being reinvestigated. Thanks to advancements in DNA technology,

31:58investigators are hoping to find a familial match to the DNA found at the crime scene.

32:02But they have hundreds of possible new leads to work through.

32:07So when you get a list like that, you get a likelihood ratio that will tell you essentially

32:13what the chances are of the first person on the list being related to the person responsible for

32:19the murder. Not wholly accurate, but when you've got hundreds and hundreds of people,

32:25you have to prioritise. So my priority was that we will look at the first 100 people

32:32and we'll work our way down, starting at the top. So I had a conversation with a scientist in Birmingham.

32:38They said, if you look at this person on the list, it wasn't number one, it was about number,

32:44I don't know, let's say 21, in the 20s. If you look at that person, if we were talking in the old DNA

32:51world, where people shared alleles in the DNA samples, that person on your list would share about

32:5918 alleles with your offender. So they're probably a screamer. And I remember that expression,

33:05they're probably a screamer. And that's what I said to the team, go and see this individual who

33:12is on the database and find out who their relatives are. And that's what they did.

33:23We spoke to the individual who was on the DNA database, identified his family, and we spoke to

33:30all of the family, all of those who were alive. We took DNA samples from them, which were then married

33:37to the seen sample. And we didn't get any. But we did find out there was one relative had died.

33:46Again, you can call me old fashioned, but I said, what did he pass off? And they said he had lung cancer.

33:53And I said, where did he die? And they said, which hospital? And I said, right, on Monday morning,

33:59ring up the hospital and see if there's any histology or any other samples as a result of

34:05his treatment or a postpartum, if there was one. So good as gold, the team came in,

34:13made the call, and they came back and said, there's a wax block from his biopsy from when he had lung cancer.

34:20So I said, we'll get some tickets to London, then get on the train and go and get it and get the

34:24appropriate statements. And we sent that off to the forensic science lab. And they came back with

34:33that deceased person as a match for your crime scene sample. And it's probably one in a billion

34:42chance of it not being the right person.

34:45The person with an exact DNA match to the semen sample found at the crime scene is a man named

34:53Robert Morley, a petty criminal from London, who was 50 years old in 1985. It is the moment Imran's

35:01loved ones and investigators have been waiting for. But the news that he cannot be arrested

35:06is heartbreaking for all involved.

35:08I was gutted. If I'm honest, I was gutted because he died. I was never going to get him in front of a

35:13court. At least I knew. And that allowed me to do lots of other things.

35:18The police had to then go and deconstruct the entirety of Robert Morley's life.

35:29Because on the surface, they just saw a man who lived most of his life in and around the London area.

35:35They have to take that and link him to this unsolved child murder in Lancashire in 1985.

35:42By deconstructing his life, they were able to build up a timeline that brought him further

35:50into the investigation as more than likely the man who had killed Imran.

35:58Police found that Morley had lived for most part of his early life in and around the London area.

36:03But interestingly, they found out that during the Second World War, Morley was evacuated to Lancashire

36:11and had lived there for a period of time before returning to London. And police believed that was

36:16the first time he made connections to the Lancashire area.

36:25In 1955, Morley had joined the army and was stationed to Germany. And whilst in Germany,

36:32he married a German woman who taught him how to speak German. And for the police,

36:37this is extremely interesting because we have to remember that as part of the cold case review,

36:43police found a friend of Imran's who told them that before he died, Imran had told his friend

36:49that he had made a new friend who could speak German.

36:57As police dig deeper into Morley's background, they find other indications that he was

37:01capable of such a horrific crime.

37:05When the police looked into Morley's history, they found significant things. They found that he'd

37:10committed indecent assault when he was aged just 14. And he had a significant history of dishonesty,

37:16burglaries and so on. Early onset sexual offending for me is really concerning. So while some young

37:22people desist, they can be supported and they might have protective factors that lead them out of the

37:27life of crime and further sexual offending. For others, this can be a sign of something serious,

37:31something really chronic.

37:36In his case, police spoke to women who'd been involved in his life and they described him as

37:40aggressive and sexually aggressive, showing that his sexual aggression wasn't limited to children.

37:45It was there in his adult relationships as well.

37:50Would disappear for weeks on end and nobody knew where he was. No one ever found out where he was

37:54during these periods of time. This might be some sort of transient lifestyle, going somewhere without

37:59a plan, moving from place to place just to see what happens. This is indicative of impulsivity.

38:04Some sex offenders might kill their victim to simply get away with the crime so that the victim

38:08can't tell. But the signs that he was strangled with his shoelaces suggest that there might have been

38:13more to it. Perhaps that was part of the satisfaction that he was gaining from the sexual assault and

38:18from the violence as a whole. The fact that this might have occurred in the day when people were around,

38:23there was a high risk of getting caught. She was extreme risk taking on the part of Morley. He

38:28wanted to have his own needs met without any concern for getting caught or any concern for other people.

38:35By the time he left the army, he was 30 years old, but his life was really looking quite chaotic.

38:41He had seven children, his marriage was falling apart, his career now was behind him. He had to make a

38:47fresh start and he decided to come back to the place that he'd had a happy few years as a child.

38:55He decided to return to Lancashire and come back to Preston.

39:00He set up home in one of the high-rise flats that's by the side of Avonham Park really.

39:05He was just sitting alone in that flat, just drinking and watching the kids come and go,

39:11and watching the world go by. You've got a really good view from up there.

39:16I think when you look at his timeline, when you look at what we know he has done and what he's capable

39:21of, and we know that there were periods of time where he went missing, where nobody knew where he

39:26was and what he was doing, I think there is a high chance that other children may have suffered at

39:31this man's hands. Despite the fact that Morley is deceased, Detective Sergeant Hurst and his team

39:40are determined to see this case through to the end. When someone's murdered a child and raped them,

39:47you want them to face justice, you want them to be judged by a jury, and you want them to go to jail

39:54for however long the judge decides. But that was never going to happen. But I still went to the

40:00Crime Prosecution Service and asked with a view to, had he been alive, would they authorise charges?

40:06She said, had he been alive, we would have authorised charges, and not to would have been an

40:11affront to common sense. And I wanted that so I could really, you know, we could really

40:18let Imran's family know that the person responsible had at least been identified. And because of their

40:25faith beliefs, you know, they appreciated that, but they, they firmly have the belief that that person

40:31will be judged in the afterlife. It's bittersweet for the family because, yes, they find out after so

40:38many years the identity of this offender. However, that family can't then bring that individual to

40:44justice, to look at the whites of the eyes, as we say, in court, to let that individual know, you know,

40:50the impact that they've had on them as a family, friends, and the community as a whole.

40:58Your heart does go out to this family because they can't have that. When we talk about that closure,

41:03there is no closure there.

41:04He clearly is a man who doesn't feel the normal range of human emotions that most people do. It's

41:18very, very hard to say how somebody can do something as heinous and as terrible as what Robert Morley

41:24did and just carry on with life. Every time there was a new appeal, every time the police put a new

41:32call out for new evidence, he would have known that this case was still open. He had ample opportunity

41:40to turn himself in and to, to own up to what he'd done, to give that family the peace or the closure

41:47at least that they deserved. The police will always keep a case open, especially something as serious

41:54as this. They'll always hope that one day somebody's going to put a foot wrong, somebody's going to put

42:00a foot out of line, something's going to happen, and one day they're going to have the answers that

42:05they've been looking for for so many years. Imran Vora was such an innocent child. He was nine years old.

42:13He had nothing to do that day apart from go to mosque. That's pure innocence. What happened to him was pure

42:19evil. It's, it's shocking. It's, it's as shocking as it gets.

42:49Oh,

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