The big question in my mind is why didn’t Sandra Brown, Alexander Gartshore’s daughter, not raise her concerns while her father was still alive?
This women suspected 20 years ago that her father was a paedophile who murdered Moira Anderson and yet she did not go to the police.
So, what did she do ?
She waited until her father died in 2006 and then published a book accusing him of the murder.
And yet this women has been feted as a campaigner ?
Sandra Brown with her book, soon to be a film.
Prosecutors believe a convicted child abuser who died in 2006 was responsible for the murder of schoolgirl Moira Anderson in Lanarkshire in 1957.
The 11-year-old was last seen on a bus to Coatbridge, which was driven by Alexander Gartshore.
Following an investigation by its cold case unit and new witnesses coming forward, the Crown Office has now said it would have prosecuted Gartshore.
Moira was last seen on 23 February 1957. Her body has never been found.
She had left her home during a snowstorm to run an errand to a local Co-op shop. Moira then boarded a bus driven by Gartshore, who was the last person to see her alive.
theneedleblog 
She raised it with police in 1992 and they continued their investigation, interviewing her father and some of his other victims, but couldn’t get enough evidence to charge or convict him. She didn’t wait till he was dead to raise concerns, she did it as soon as she had any.
Hmmm… Before you take pot shots you should do your research. Sandra’s book was published in 1998 i have a copy!
Funny thing is alex gartshores family In leeds was and always have defended this man. Even let him be around his grandchildren when I know for certain One of his grandchildren has been abused and this slimeball wasn’t investigated about it, funny that since the police and social services knew all about this creeps background. Instead of questioning this man the family pointed at the childs other grandparents family and tried to put the blame on them and the mother of this child. Derranged family there are more than likely more abused children by this man, who was very dim rather dumb but wasn’t that stupid when it came to abusing innocent children and possibly murder… all this TRUE.. JUST SOME TRUE INFO FOR YOU..
Yes, I’VE CORRECTED IT!
But I can’t apologise for your accusation. The simple words are “I apologise”….. or “I’m sorry”.
Otherwise everyone will think you DON’T do apologies.
Gojam……. You obviously have not read the book. It was first published in 1998 by Macmillan.
I have just spent the day reading the Pan edition published in 1999.
Both these dates are years earlier than the death of her father in 2006.
What planet are you from?
Addendum: Sandra first brought her suspicions to the Police between Easter 1992 and the end of April in the same year. That’s 14 (FOURTEEN) years before her father died in 2006. Perhaps an apology might be in order, Gojam. She deserves it. Or don’t you DO apologies?
I’m always happy to correct or apologise if I’ve got something wrong.
I think that you’ve corrected just now though.
May be an idea to read the book?? That probably answers the question….
Alexander Gartshore was the prime suspect in this case in 1957. The Police questioned him in 1957 and they did not have sufficient evidence to indict him for murder. Gartshore was the Number One suspect all along. But the Police did not have sufficient evidence. The Police and the entire population of Coatbridge and Carnbroe thought Alexander Gartshore was responsible for Moira’s disappearance. Which is probably why he left the area once he got out of jail for the raping of the 12 year old.
Gartshore was a slippery paedophile who toyed with Police and thought he could get away with his crimes. Eighteen months after Moira disappeared Alexander Gartshore was jailed for raping a 12 year old baysitter. He admitted to Police that he was the last person ever to see Moira.
He was even re-arrested in 1993 in connection with little Moira’s disappearance and charges were again dropped due to insufficient evidence. That was 36 years after Moira disappeared. The cops still had their eye on him.
The Police thought it was him for fifty years. The Police couldn’t make it stick.
Yesterday the Crown Office ruled that Gartshore “would likely” have been indicted for the murder today had he not died in 2006 and there would have been “a reasonable prospect” of a conviction if he were ever tried.
Stop blaming his daughter Gojam just because she thought it was him as well. Alexander Gartshore abused her and her cousins when they were little. She didn’t have evidence that he killed Moira and neither did the Police.
Increasingly Gojam you sound like a self appointed witchfinder general, who knows better even than abused and frightened people. Attacking Sandra is repulsive.Good to see however that you have, at last, recognised that some of the stories you’ve been fed are a crock and some of the ‘informants’ money grubbing fantasists. All a bit too late really.
With both the victim and the suspected perpetrator deceased, this is what seems of most importance, to me;
“Despite the passage of time, she has never been forgotten,” he said.
poor Gojam – such an inflated ego he doesn’t check the facts. Accuses me of this that and the other. Perhaps he should do some research pre-internet, such as my article on tackling the ‘meat rack’ in 1987. And see the rest.
There was a programme on bbc I think where the father was interviewed he was living in Leeds at the time and denied the murder Sandra has always said he was involved with two others who worked for the. Same bus company
Reblogged this on justiceforkevinandjenveybaylis.
Never mind having a go at Sandra who many of us here in Scotland remember appearing on TV attempting to shop her father to the cops while he was still alive. In 1957 the cops knew Alexander Gartshore was the last person to see Moira Anderson alive. The Police must have had an inkling… why did they not act?
Children are not detectives. It is not down to the children of possible child murderers and paedophiles to try to find evidence and solve crimes then arrest and charge them. That is the job of the Police.
I saw her on the news a few minutes ago describing her frustration that he wasn’t brought to justice when he was still alive.
Sandra works herself into exhaustion to help survivors and to bring perpetrators to justice, she’s one of the good guys Gojam. :)
Are you getting suspicious gojam? Finally.
I’m objective and I always have been.
But unlike you I’m not accepting money from child abusers (indirectly) to discredit victims of abuse.
Does it ever give you sleepless nights ? The thought that your machinations allowed an abuser to abuse another child ? It would certainly trouble my conscious.
But then I’d never put myself in that position regardless of any ‘everyone has a right to a defense’ argument.
Besides, I still haven’t forgiven you for claiming to be best friends with DH. I talked to him directly afterwards and I realised then and there that you were a liar and a bullshitter who will do anything for your cause/money.
What? This is beyond fair comment. I’d given you the benefit of the doubt. No more. Gojam is the liar.
You deny that you work for Chris Saltrese who defends those accused of child abuse ?
With the greatest of respect Gojam those accused of child abuse are entitled to a defence and I humbly submit that to provide such a service is not dishonourable, only after granting those accused of the most heinous of crimes the greatest opportunity to a defence can we be satisfied that we are punishing the guilty while protecting not only the innocent but prospective victims.
It is understandable that emotive issues such as this provoke extreme reactions, I once subscribed to the view that an accusation justified dragging the miscreant to the market square before publicly beating him to death with a stick. Fortunately for society as a whole and particular individuals my view failed to prosper.
Sandra is a friend of mine. She’s been campaigning for over twenty years to get her father arrested. She now helps countless victims and her foundation has saved the lives, literally, of many friends of mine.
OK, if Sandra is a friend of yours I’ll accept that.
Could you ask your friend for a statement which addresses the latest development and also why she did not report her father to the police when she first suspected him of the murder of Moira Anderson twenty years ago.
Thank you.
would you rather that she had kept her mouth shut forever.
She did Gojam. They never brought any charges agains him. This article is from 2005. http://www.scotsman.com/news/was-my-paedophile-dad-a-murderer-too-1-1051299
She fought, alongside Moira’s family, for her father to be brought to justice.
Read my comment above … you really don’t deserve an answer.
there on the news just as much as any other group are.
Really? Only impersonally like the ‘holohoax’ or point-the-finger-over-there to Israel’s commands and atrocities. Doncha know who owns and populates runs ‘Me-Jah’? Doncha realise that when they print ‘Russian/East European sex and child-trafficking rings’ these are ‘Yews’ as in ‘Yewtree’?
why are jews never on the news for child abuse ? heres why
http://iamthewitness.com/listeners/Jewish.child.molesters.that.are.never.on.the.NEWS-WHY.htm
Don’t we know it. Their Talmud openly states that to rape a 3 year old child is no crime, neither is raping and murdering ‘goy’ children and adults. As we know, the ADL was formed on the body of a sexually tortured little girl called Mary Fagan in order to protect the perp(s).
she only had suspicions at the time not evidence.
that’s probably why she dident report it, suspicions imply that she wasn’t sure it was true.would you go around accusing your own father of murder. unless you were certain it was true i wouldn’t.,
She explains all of this in her book. Culturally it was not easy to get the family or community to accept it.
She apparently didn’t wait until 2006 and did go to the police while he was alive. The last quote below suggests she was a victim of him herself.
“She campaigned to bring her father to justice, but her efforts were thwarted, in 2006, when he died.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Brown_(campaigner)
“Fifteen years ago next week (1999), Mrs Brown shot to prominence after sharing her story with The Scotsman’s sister title, Scotland on Sunday. In it, she named her father, Alexander Gartshore, then an ailing 77-year-old, as the schoolgirl’s killer….Despite approaching police, Mrs Brown was left frustrated at what she regarded as a lack of progress.”
http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/sandra-brown-profile-rather-than-hit-a-brick-wall-we-ve-punched-through-one-1-273187
“And she wants justice for herself, and for the six girls, five of them her own cousins, whom she believes were also molested by her father in Coatbridge at around the time of Moira’s disappearance.”
http://tablet.scotsman.com/sins-of-the-father-1-1412994
She suspected her father 20 years ago.
Long before he died.
It looks as if she may have found it difficult to turn in her own father.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/was-my-paedophile-dad-a-murderer-too-1-1051299
She would have been reporting him for an old crime, and it’s not clear if she suspected him of still abusing others. If she is to be condemned for not reporting him sooner, should adult survivors of childhood family abuse who have failed to report their abuser also be condemned, or only if they think the abuser is still harming others?
She suspected him of murdering an 11 year old girl.
Thanks for clarification. One could despair at this continual pignorant mantra of boxheads “why didn’t they report it to police” whilst thousands of dosiers of reported incidents gather dust, victims intimidated or silenced and the cops culpable of the very same noxious activities. When are people going to get it into their immeasurably thick skulls that victims have ‘nowhere to run, nowhere to hid and no-one to tell’? When they gonna realise that the cops work for the pedo’s running this whirled circus of insanity? Obviously if this account holds truth, the daughter would most certainly would have been abused herself.