Double child murderer and rapist can now be released from prison

A double child murderer who was the first killer convicted using DNA evidence can now be released, the Parole Board has confirmed

Convicted murderer Colin Pitchfork, 61, was jailed for life for the rape and murder of 15-year-olds Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth that took place within Leicestershire in the 1980s.

Pitchfork has spent 33 years in prison, he was last denied parole back in 2018.

The Parole Board said that it was satisfied that Pitchfork was suitable to be released, which is subject to some conditions.

“We can confirm that a panel of the Parole Board has directed the release of Colin Pitchfork following an oral hearing,” a Parole Board spokesman said.

“Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.”

This comes after no human remains have been found under a café located in Gloucester that was believed to have links to the notorious serial killer Fred West and a missing teenage girl named Mary Bastholm, Gloucestershire Police have now said.

This decision is provisional for a period of 21 days, the spokesperson added.

A source close to the Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said that the government would take legal advice over the decision.

Speaking to the BBC when Pitchfork was last denied parole, Lynda’s mother Kath Eastwood said: “The Parole Board have made the right decision [and] put the families of the victims first and listened to us before the murderer.

“Let us hope this continues.”

Colin Pitchfork: Two brutal murders

• Colin Pitchfork, who was 22 years old at the time of the first murder, was married with two sons. Pitchfork was a baker and grew up in rural Leicestershire and lived in Littlethorpe
• In November of 1983 he left his baby son sleeping in the back of his car when he raped and strangled 15-year-old Lynda Mann in Narborough, before then driving home and put his son to bed
• Three years following, less than a mile from where he had killed Lynda, he raped and murdered Dawn Ashworth, also aged just 15, of Enderby. The pathologist who had examined her body described it as being a “brutal sexual assault”
• A police investigation had initially led to the wrong man, a local 17-year-old who had falsely confessed to one of the killings. After an unprecedented set of mass screenings of 5,000 men that used pioneering “DNA profiling” technology, Pitchfork was then eventually caught. At first, Colin Pitchfork had evaded justice by persuading a colleague to take the DNA test for him
• He pleaded guilty to both of the murders in September of 1987 and was sentenced to life in prison in January of 1988. The judge said that the killings were “particularly sadistic” and that he doubted Pitchfork would ever be released
• In 2009, his 30-year life sentence was reduced by two years as a result of “exceptional progress”, a decision that had strongly been criticised by the families of his murder victims
• He was moved to an undisclosed open prison at some point prior to the 8th of January 2017, after his request for release

This comes after Police were searching the café in Gloucester in connection with the disappearance of a teenage girl who was suspected of having been murdered by the notorious serial killer Fred West.