IN 1984, Mark Tildesley’s distraught parents sounded the alarm when he did not return home from visiting a funfair.
His disappearance triggered every parent’s worst nightmare, leading to a shocking investigation that would uncover one of Britain’s most depraved gangs of child abusers and killers.
One year after Mark’s disappearance, the bodies of two young boys – 14-year-old Jason Swift and six-year-old Barry Lewis – were found in Essex just days apart.
Police quickly connected the dots, launching Operation Stranger to hunt down the monsters responsible.
The investigation resulted in the questioning of a gang of paedophiles, later dubbed the “Dirty Dozen”, who all had a string of previous convictions.
Among their members is the infamous Sidney Cooke, a funfair worker who had been questioned after the disappearance of Mark Tildesley.
This week, The Sun exclusively reported that Cooke, now 97, has been pictured for the first time in 26 years as he prepares for his 12th parole hearing – his latest bid to get out of prison.
The monster is currently serving two life sentences for his sick crimes.
In new video, he was seen at HMP Wakefield seemingly threatening another inmate. In shocking scenes, he is seen throwing a substance at him as other lags look on.
An insider said that although he now looks “so old” in the new images, it is definitely him and calls him “the face of evil”.
Last year, a two-part documentary, Child Snatchers: A Day at the Fair delved into the horrifying tale to find out if there were any more victims.
In the film, former detective David Bright, who worked on the case said: “There are all sorts of villains, but the worst are those who harm children. There is wickedness in this world. Some people are evil.”
‘Twisted’ crimes
Mark’s harrowing story began on June 1, 1984, when he eagerly rushed to the funfair in Wokingham, Berkshire.
The sweet young boy had carefully saved up for the half-term event by returning abandoned trolleys at his local Tesco.
With coins jingling in his pocket, he cycled to the funfair – promising his parents he would be home at 7.30pm.
Tragically, the seven-year-old never made it home. Instead, he met a man – we now know is Cooke – outside a local shop who gave him 50p to buy sweets.
He also promised Mark a ride on the dodgems – the boy’s favourite – at the Frank Ayers Fun Fair later that night.
Police now know he was raped and murdered by the Dirty Dozen, but 40 years later, his body has never been found.
While police were investigating the disappearance of Mark, a 14-year-old boy called Jason Swift was abducted from east London in November 1985.
He had been brutally abused and eventually suffocated in a filthy council flat in this block in East London.
Each paedophile had paid £5 to leader Cooke so they could rape Jason in the filthy flat. The boy died when the sickening crime went wrong.
There are all sorts of villains, but the worst are those who harm children. There is wickedness in this world. Some people are evil.
David Bright
In the documentary, Jason’s cousin Emma Whiteman says: “He was preyed on by these sick, twisted people. They watched and they followed and they could see he wasn’t going back anywhere.
“They knew he was vulnerable and preyed on him. I’m not going to lie, it gave me nightmares.”
A week later a second body was found – six-year-old Barry Lewis, who had disappeared from south London after being snatched on September 15. He had also been sexually abused before being killed.
The key piece of evidence connecting the murders of Jason and Barry was the presence of a tranquillising drug found in both of their bodies.
The investigation zeroed in on the notorious ringleader Cooke, infamously nicknamed “Hissing Sid.” At the time, Cooke was on remand at Brixton Prison.
“I interviewed Sidney Cooke,” recalls David in the film. “Even with all the charges he faced, including the most horrific offences, he still wanted to be the governor.”
Initially, Cooke denied any involvement in Jason’s death. But after requesting a Salvation Army Minister was called in, he began to admit his role.
“When we finished with Cooke, he (the Salvation Army Minister) said it was the worst day of his life. That stuck with me,” David continues. “It was horrific. I’ll say no more than that.”
Cooke and his gang operated from a flat in Hackney’s Kingsmead estate, preying on vulnerable children.
They either hired rent boys or abducted kids from the streets, subjecting them to unspeakable sexual torture.
Cooke roamed the country, using his “Test Your Strength” machine at fairgrounds to lure boys.
Once he gained their trust, he drugged them before subjecting them to brutal assaults.
In 1989, Cooke was convicted of manslaughter for the death of 14-year-old Jason.
Alongside him, fellow gang members Leslie Bailey, Robert Oliver, and Steven Barrell were also sentenced for their involvement in Jason’s death.
Cooke was identified in court as the leader of a notorious paedophile ring and linked to the disappearance of seven-year-old Mark.
The graphic details of Jason’s killing were so distressing that many people in the courtroom broke down in tears as they were read aloud.
The group escaped murder charges only because the prosecution couldn’t definitively prove who was responsible for Jason’s death.
Emma watched the trial at the Old Bailey, London, with her family and said: “They were smirking at my uncle and I thought, ‘Who would do that? You just took a child away and now you’re smirking at the parents and the family.’
“I was absolutely unhappy, putting it politely, that they only got done for manslaughter, they know they did it.
“Smirking at everyone. Evil, sick, twisted – that’s what comes to mind when I hear their names because they’re nothing else.”
Prison confession
Even with Jason’s killers behind bars, the police knew they still had a long road ahead to solve the cases of Barry Lewis and Mark Tildesley.
They were convinced the gang was involved but struggled to find the evidence needed to secure a conviction.
While serving his sentence for Jason’s murder at Wandsworth Prison, Leslie Bailey confessed to his cellmate, Ian Gabb, about the killings of other boys.
Gabb, a building worker, of Brixton, south London, was sent to prison for three and a half years after admitting wounding his former lover.
His credible information prompted the police to launch Operation Orchid.
In the documentary, Robert Brown, a former police officer who worked on the case said: “We needed to concoct a scam where we could go into the prison regularly and not draw attention unnecessarily.
“So I decided that I would masquerade as a vicar. It needed to be covert. The story was that Gabb had seen God and seen the light, instead he saw me.”
Bailey was re-interviewed and finally admitted his involvement in Barry’s murder and the disposal of his body.
Prolific paedophile
SIDNEY Cooke is one of Britain’s most infamous paedophiles, known for leading a gang of child abusers responsible for some of the country’s most horrific crimes.
Born in 1927, Cooke worked as a fairground worker, traveling across the UK with his “Test Your Strength” machine.
This job allowed him to move frequently and target vulnerable boys, often gaining their trust with sweets and promises of fairground rides.
Cooke was the ringleader of a group later dubbed the “Dirty Dozen,” a gang of paedophiles who preyed on young boys, often those from troubled backgrounds or living on the streets.
Operating out of a flat in Hackney’s Kingsmead estate, the gang lured, drugged, and raped children, sometimes leading to their deaths.
His most infamous crime was the brutal abuse and murder of 14-year-old Jason Swift in 1985. Cooke and his gang took turns sexually assaulting Jason after each paying £5.
When Jason died from the abuse, they dumped his body in Essex. Cooke was convicted of Jason’s manslaughter in 1989 and sentenced to 19 years, though he served only nine before being released in 1998.
His release sparked public outrage, and within months, police arrested him again for abusing two teenage brothers in the 1970s.
In 1999, Cooke pleaded guilty to ten charges, including rape and indecent assault, and received two life sentences.
Now in his late 90s, Cooke remains in prison. Detectives believe he and his gang may be linked to up to 17 child murders, including the disappearance of seven-year-old Mark Tildesley, whose body has never been found.
Cooke had lured Barry with sweets, abducted him in South London, and taken him to the Kingsmead Estate, where he was abused and drugged by the gang.
A witness reported seeing a man with an unwell child at a petrol station near where Barry’s body was found.
When the police asked Bailey to identify the burial site during the second interview, he led them directly to the location where Barry had been discovered.
In 1991, Bailey – who was known by the nickname Catweazle – was charged with Barry’s murder, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.
But unfortunately, there was not enough evidence to charge the other two men.
During interviews, Bailey also revealed “credible and horrific” details about Mark’s last moments. He admitted travelling from London to Wokingham, where Cooke was waiting.
Cooke had lured Mark with sweets, promising him a ride on the dodgems.
But instead, the young boy was taken to a dingy caravan on the outskirts, drugged with a spiked milk drink and brutally abused by the sick gang.
“There’s a side of me that almost wishes I didn’t know what happened to Mark,” says Charlie O’Malley, his childhood friend. “Because I cannot imagine what Mark would have felt in his last few minutes.”
One year later, Bailey was convicted of the manslaughter of Mark.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) chose not to pursue charges against Cooke, because he was already serving time for the manslaughter of Jason Swift.
Cooke was released from prison in April 1999 after serving just nine years. For his own safety, he was immediately placed into voluntary custody.
But cops, convinced that he was linked to other unsolved crimes, kept his file open.
Within months, Cooke faced fresh accusations of abusing two teenage brothers he had befriended while working at fairgrounds decades earlier, as well as the rape of a young woman.
In a shocking turn during his 1999 trial at Manchester Crown Court, Cooke abruptly changed his plea to guilty, admitting to ten offences against the youths and receiving two life sentences.
Four charges of rape, three of indecent assault, and one of buggery were left on the court file.
Gangsters’ brutal justice
The convicted men’s crimes were so heinous that criminal gangs took justice into their own hands – both in and out of prison.
Bailey was found dead in his cell in Whitemoor prison in 1993 and, while it was initially thought to be suicide, a post-mortem revealed he had been strangled.
Two prisoners, Michael Cain and John Brookes, were convicted of his murder and were thought to have acted to avenge Bailey’s victims.
Another man linked to the ring, Bill Malcolm, was murdered in an apparent gangland hit.
Malcolm walked free after an Old Bailey judge ruled that 13 charges – including rape, indecent assault and cruelty against a young girl – could not be heard because of a legal technicality.
He was shot in the head after answering the door at his home in East London.
The killing exhibited the hallmarks of a professional hit, with two white males seen fleeing the scene. Malcolm, aged 46, died on the way to hospital.
The murder reportedly left Cooke, Oliver, and two members of their group fearing their names were on a hit list put together by East End gangsters who were sympathetic to the grief of the victims’ families.
Oliver, released in 2014, was hounded out of six towns by vigilante gangs and was eventually housed in a secure unit attached to Nottingham prison for his own protection.
He then changed his name and appearance and may have fled the UK.
Barrell’s whereabouts remain a mystery.
How many more victims?
In March, ex-detective David Bright, the man who got Cooke to confess to Jason Swift’s murder, urged cops to grill Cooke about other unsolved murders before he died.
Detectives believe there could have been as many as 17 other abductions and murders with connections to the Dirty Dozen gang.
David, who firmly believes Cooke should never be released, thinks the ageing predator might be tempted to “clear his conscience.”
“There are other children in graves hidden around the country that could have been the result of Cooke and his former cronies,” he says in the film.
At 97, and with all but two gang members dead, it’s time he came clean about the extent of his vile crimes.
