The Murder of Childhood

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the death of sex-offending expert and founder of the Gracewell Clinic, Ray Wyre. It is also the twenty-fifth anniversary of the main events described in this book and 40 years since newspaper girl Genette Tate `disappeared into thin air'. Tim Tate and Charmaine Richardson (Wyre's widow) have meticulously re-visited a work that has been out of print for a decade, adding fresh Introduction, Preface and endpiece, `Twenty-five Years Later ....' They show how events have changed, including the further conviction of child serial-killer Robert Black for the murder of Jennifer Cardy and changes in policing methods, but criticise a continuing, possibly worse, failure to protect children from paedophiles in the internet age. They voice real concern that Ray Wyre's call to learn more about sex-offenders, their methods of operation and strategies of denial, distortion, deflection of blame and need for treatment, have not been heeded. Ultimately, the book paints a picture of political regression.