IT WAS the murder that shocked a region.
Christopher Laverack, a nine-year-old schoolboy from Anlaby, had been abducted from a place where he should have been safe – the home his elder sister Kim shared with her husband Stephen Hines.
His body was found two days later after being dumped in Beverley Beck in a carpet bag. He had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death with a blunt object.
Although no one was ever brought to justice for such heinous crimes, police remain satisfied their chief suspect was convicted paedophile Melvyn Read, who died in Hull Prison from cancer in February, 2008.
They also believe he had stolen Christopher's innocence before he was murdered.
However, the lack of a conviction in Christopher's case inevitably means questions remain, not least whether Read, or whoever was responsible, was acting alone.
Officers have long suspected the killer had an accomplice.
It was not surprising that the shadow of suspicion fell on Hines. He was the last person to see Christopher before the abduction.
NAMED: Melvyn Read was named as the prime suspect in the murder after his death in 2008.Kim Hines left home in Harpham Grove, east Hull, at 7.50pm to go to work at the Crown Hotel in Marfleet Lane. After watching television with Christopher until 9.15pm, Hines also left the house for the same pub, where he was going to buy crisps. He left his 18-month-old son and Christopher alone in the house.
Hines stayed for a couple of drinks and returned at 10.25pm to find Christopher, and the television, missing.
Hines was arrested a week later, the first of three occasions when he would be taken into custody for questioning. No charges were ever brought, but Hines was dogged by his association to the crime and in 2008 spoke exclusively to the Mail to reveal how his life had been ruined by it, and he had been beaten up, spat at and chased down the street.
He used it as an opportunity to profess his innocence and say that, far from being a threat to Christopher, the boy looked up to him as a "hero" and "the big brother he never had".
Hines categorically denied any involvement in the abuse Christopher had suffered in the months before his murder.
"The answer is no," he said. "If I had known something like that was going on then I'd have told his mother, the police or social services."
Those comments seem less credible now Hines himself has been unmasked as a paedophile – he has admitted sexually assaulting two children, aged eight and ten, and will be sentenced on Friday.
COURT: Stephen Hines appearing at court on child abuse charges.Hines said of his questioning over Christopher's case: "They (the police) thought I was lying and it doesn't make sense to me.
"I have been asked a million questions about a million things that I know nothing about.
"Every time I was arrested I thought I was looking at 25 years in jail."
But Hines said he had understood why he was arrested.
"I was arrested about a week after Christopher was murdered," he said. "I was taken to Tower Grange Police Station.
"When I was being questioned I couldn't say anything because I didn't know anything.
"I understand why I had to be questioned – Christopher had been taken from my house. They have got to ask everybody everything.
"I was so worried at first. The police were in and out the house and dug the garden up.
"My own son was in the house at the time. He was there, he could have been taken.
"I sometimes think it might have been different if my son had been four or five; he could have gone as well. I could have lost my own son.
"On the Sunday after he went they told me they had found Christopher and I said 'I'm going to knock his head off when I find out where he's been'.
"Then they said he was dead."
Christopher often stayed with his sister and brother-in-law at weekends, and Hines gave an insight into the time he spent there in his Mail interview six years ago.
Hines said: "I used to love it when Christopher came round.
"He really looked up to me and he once told me I was his hero. I felt like I was the big brother he never had.
"I used to pick him up with one hand and he thought it was brilliant.
"He always used to ask me how I got so strong. I wasn't, but it was just he was so small."
Hines was also adamant he did not know Read – Christopher's uncle – who remains the police's chief suspect in the case.
But he admitted Read had attended his wedding and they appeared on wedding photographs together.
Read, who was convicted in 2003 of nine counts of sexual offences against children, died weeks before he was due for release from prison.
Hines said: "I didn't know who Melvyn Read was. When asked by police I couldn't remember him.
"He would never come to see me. If I passed him in the street I wouldn't have known, I wouldn't have said hello or anything.
"I never knew about him. Yes, he was at my wedding, but to me I had never seen him.
"I have been shown pictures of me with him two people away from me, but I just don't know the man ... it was more her family than mine and he was part of that."
