Serial killer wins damages

Peter Moore attacked up to 50 men over 20 years

A serial killer has been awarded nearly £13,000 damages over the loss of possessions including garden gnomes.

Peter Moore, 60, was jailed for life in 1996 for stabbing four men to death.

The former cinema manager from Rhyl, who attacked more than 50 other men in what the judge at his murder trial described as "20 years of terror", received four life sentences.

The Home Secretary later recommended that he was never released.

But in Leeds Crown Court on Thursday, Moore listed property he claimed had been sold by two of his former friends after he was arrested.

'Personal friends'

Chester District Judge Charles Newman awarded Moore £12,842 damages for the loss of the possessions ranging from antique furniture, 900 cinema posters and jewellery to Wellington boots, cans of food and garden gnomes.

He was also awarded costs.

Moore told the judge he had given the keys to his four-bedroomed house in Kinmel Bay to two friends, Les Bradshaw and Pauline Prydderch, and asked them to act as caretakers with a view to buying the property.

He said he agreed the couple - who did not turn up at court - could sell some of his possessions, but gave them a list of property he wanted to keep.

"They were personal friends of mine and I did trust them. I was told very shortly after that everything had been taken from the premises," Moore told the court.

Stabbed

"I also heard that as well as just taking furnishings, they'd attacked the fabric of the building. The sink units had been ripped out and the woodblock floors had been taken out."

He told the judge - who sat in the civil case at Leeds because it was closer to Wakefield prison where Moore is being held - that he never received any cash from the couple and did not hear from them again.

The property, which adjoined Moore's family business premises, has since been sold.

Moore's first victim was Henry Roberts, 56, stabbed to death at his home in Anglesey in September 1995.

His next victim, Edward Carthy, 28, was stabbed and buried in a forest after meeting Moore in a gay bar.

Killing was 'fun'

Keith Randles, 49, a traffic safety manager, was similarly killed as he slept in his caravan at road works on the A5 in Anglesey in November 1995.

Mr Randles had begged to know why he was being attacked after Moore dragged him from his caravan and started stabbing him.

Moore had replied: "For fun."

Moore later told police there was "a certain enjoyment" in the killing.

The last man to die was Tony Davies, 40, a married father of two. He was stabbed at a beach near Abergele on the north Wales coast in December 1995.