It is now ten years since the death of sex-offending expert and founder of the Gracewell Clinic, Ray Wyre. It is also the twenty-fifth anniversary of the main events described in this book and 40 years since newspaper girl Genette Tate 'disappeared into thin air'. Tim Tate and Charmaine Richardson (Wyre's widow) have meticulously re-visited a work out of print for a decade, adding a fresh Introduction, Preface, Index and endpiece, 'Twenty-five Years Later...'.
They show how events have moved on, including the further conviction of Black for the murder of Jennifer Cardy and developments in policing methods, but criticise a continuing, possibly worse, failure to protect children from paedophiles in the internet age. They voice real concern that Ray Wyre's call to learn more about sex-offenders, their methods of operation and strategies of denial, distortion, deflection of blame and need for treatment, have gone unheeded. Ultimately, the book paints a picture of political regression.
Richardson, Charmaine: - Charmaine Richardson grew up in Ealing, the second of four children before moving to Watford where she attended St Michael's Roman Catholic Senior School then a secretarial course at Casio College. Her first marriage, aged 22, produced two children. In 1986, after a bout of depression she sought counselling for sexual abuse experienced in childhood. She went on to set up a self-help group, subsequently joining Luton Rape Crisis Centre. She obtained a degree in English Literature at Northampton University as a mature student and has since pursued a variety of careers: counselling, home tutoring and funeral celebrant. She met and married Ray Wyre in the late-1990s. Her life with him forms a central part of her 2018 book, Pick Up the Pieces. Now retired she spends her time 'visiting tea-rooms with friends and spoiling her grandchildren'.
Tate, Tim: - Tim Tate is an award-winning documentary film-maker, investigative journalist and best-selling author. Over a 32-year career in television he made almost 90 documentary films for all British terrestrial networks, as well as Sky, Al Jazeera and Discovery, A&E and Court TV in the United States. His films have won awards from Amnesty international, the Royal Television Society, UNESCO, the New York Festivals, the US National Association of Cable Broadcasting and the Association for International Broadcasting. He has written for all national newspapers and is the author of 14 other non-fiction books, including the best-selling Slave Girl, which told the story of a young British woman sex-trafficked into Amsterdam's Red Light District. His most recent books are an investigation into the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, an enquiry into more than twenty unsolved murders allegedly carried out by the Yorkshire Ripper, and the harrowing story of Ingrid von Oelhafen, a Slovakian child kidnapped by the Nazis for the Lebensborn experiment to create a new 'Master Race'. For much of his career he specialised in investigating child sexual abuse and paedophilia, often working with Ray Wyre on books and documentaries. His investigations into organized child pornography dealing led to the arrest of more than 12 active paedophiles. In 1994 he produced and directed Channel 4's acclaimed Dispatches film investigating Robert Black's life and the police failure to catch him.
Wyre, Ray: - Ray Wyre (1951-2008) was a nationally acknowledged expert in the sexual crime field. He began working with sex-offenders as a member of the Probation Service in the 1970s. From 1981 to 1986 he established a groupwork programme for sex-offenders in a top-security prison. On leaving the Probation Service he established the Clinic for Sexual Counselling, a hospital-based programme, until he founded the Gracewell Clinic and Institute in Birmingham in 1988. Ray Wyre was made a Churchill Fellow for his research in America into the treatment of both sex-offenders and their victims. He became an independent sexual crime consultant working closely with police services in profiling investigations and training police officers in interview techniques. He often appeared in court as an independent expert witness for either prosecution or defence and appeared in and acted as a consultant for many TV programmes and commentaries. He published numerous articles on sex-offenders and sex abuse and was the author of Women, Men and Rape: Working with Sex Abuse; Sexual Crime Analysis Report; and Murder Squad. He died, after suffering a stroke, in June 2008.
