Lesley Molseed and Stefan Kiszko

In 1975, a young girl set out to run an errand to the local shops, and never returned. What followed was tragedy - not only Lesley's murder, but the wrongful conviction of an innocent man. Stefan Kiszko spent 16 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, while the true killer remained free.

Ohhh this episode broke my heart to be honest. I don’t think I did it justice and I might revisit it in a longer form in the future.

What I didn’t cover terribly well was that the girls who had claimed that Stefan exposed himself to them, which the police used as the justification to arrest him…turns out they lied. “For a laugh”.

Two of the four were ultimately cautioned for perjury having lied in court. Such a nothing punishment for contributing to ruining a man’s life and letting a murderer go free.

Stefan suffered terribly in prison. He was sent to “Murder Mansion”, Wakefield Prison, where he was attacked four times. He was denied parole because he wouldn’t admit guilt. He suffered mental illness including signs of schizophrenia. But he wasn’t given any sort of mental health treatment until he was transferred to Ashworth in 1991. He remained a psychiatric in-patient for a month after his acquittal.

Stefan was told that he would receive £500,000 in compensation for his wrongful imprisonment – neither he or his mother saw the money.

Meanwhile, the real killer, Ronald Castree, went on to commit a series of sexual offences against children.

In amidst the horrible story of Stefan’s wrongful imprisonment, it’s easy to overlook Lesley. But she was as much a victim of a miscarriage of justice as Stefan and her family still carry the burden of her loss.

Lesley, Stefan and Charlotte are all buried in Rochdale Cemetery.