Four men belonging to the most reviled gang of child molesters in Britain were last night in fear of their lives after a second of their number was slain in an apparent revenge killing.
Sidney Cooke, Robert Oliver and Stephen Barrell, believed to have murdered up to 20 young boys, and their friend, Brian 'Chickenmaster' Turner, a former scoutmaster convicted of abusing dozens of boys, fear their names are on a hit list drawn up by East End gangsters sympathetic to the victims' families.
All four are known to have associated with Bill Malcolm, who was shot through the head with a single bullet when he answered the door at his home in Forest Gate, east London, last Thursday night. The killing bore the hallmarks of a professional hit and two white males were seen running away. Malcolm, 46, died on the way to hospital.
The four men, along with Malcolm, were also closely associated with Leslie 'Catweazle' Bailey, the man convicted alongside Cooke, Oliver and Barrell of the murder of 14-year-old Jason Swift. Each of the men had paid £5 to have sex with Jason in a filthy flat in Hackney in 1984, but he died when the orgy when wrong.
Bailey was found dead in his cell in Whitemoor prison in 1993. At first he was thought to have taken his own life, but a post-mortem examination showed he had been strangled. Two prisoners, Michael Cain and John Brookes, were convicted of his murder. They are believed to have acted in a bid to avenge Bailey's victims.
