It was 8am and his dad had just left for work. His mum in her pink dressing gown was busy making breakfast. The idyllic domestic scene would be shattered by an intruder whose actions would ultimately tear a family apart.
The man who barged his way into the terraced house in Greater Manchester that morning in 1981 was Andrew Longmire. As he crossed the threshold he began the first of two terrifying campaigns of rape.
That day he not only brutally assaulted a young mother but robbed a little boy of the innocence of childhood. Forty two years later that child cannot forgive Longmire, who has changed his name to Andrew Barlow.
The Parole Board has confirmed that after 34 years in jail Barlow is due to be released this month, despite receiving 13 life sentences and an additional 56 years for other offences. He was given eleven life sentences in October 1988 after being convicted of 11 rapes; three attempted rapes; indecent assault; and using a firearm to resist arrest.
His tariff was fixed at 20 years. In the decades that followed, Barlow, originally from Bolton, was linked to more offending, as two previously unsolved cases were cracked and he was given two further life sentences in 2010 and 2017.
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At the time that his mother was raped the boy was under six years-old. "I was absolutely furious when I found out Longmire was being released," he said. "I cried my eyes out because I remembered the affect it had on my mother and her life."
Recalling the moment Longmire entered the family home, he said: "I was sat at the breakfast table with my little sister. It was about 8am and my dad had left for work. Then on the back door there was two loud bangs. I though it was my dad coming back.
"There was a man, masked. I remember my mum, I think telling my sister and I to play outside. The next thing I recall was my mum dragging me across the road to a neighbour's house. We stayed there while an ambulance was called for my mum."
He would learn years later that Longmire had taken his mother upstairs in the family home and raped her.
He added: "My dad couldn't handle it, he had an affair, got divorced from my mum and moved away. We went from a lovely family to my mum having to claim social and we moved to a council estate. My mum then took numerous jobs to look after my sister and I. Before the attack she was never a great drinker but that changed after what happened.
"Then she got cancer and died still in her forties. What Longmire did had a torrid affect on her. The thing that haunts me most is how my mum suffered.
"We went from being in a nice home to a broken home. But my mum carried on - she did her best for us, and her children turned out okay. My sister and I did okay getting decent jobs but it is my mum I feel for. She had a couple of boyfriends in later life but she never settled down with another man.
"I am disgusted and appalled by the decision to release Longmire. He received 13 life sentences. I get that people do change over the years and should be rehabilitated, but not in his case. This was not a one off offence. My mum was the first victim and another 12 followed. We are just one family - think of the pain he has caused to all of them.
"My mum went to court to see him get convicted and as she was the first victim her case was featured in a Crimewatch reconstruction on TV. She was in her late twenties when she was attacked and it affected her for the rest of her life."
He has now made a formal request to the Parole Board for the decision to release Barlow to be reconsidered. "I have been told that if he is released it will not be to Greater Manchester," he said. "But I don't think he should ever come out."
The man, like other victims and their families, was not informed that Barlow was being released. "We knew nothing about it. Cousins had seen it in the Manchester Evening News, but did not say anything to us as they knew how upsetting it would be," he said.
In his written application for decision to release Barlow to be reconsidered he says: "My mother doesn’t have a voice anymore but I do, we are just one family to be rocked to the core by this man. We put this behind us as a family and had moved on, until reading for the first time last week, on Barlow's upcoming release, can you imagine the shock and all those painful memories, returning once again.
"Put yourselves in my family’s shoes, I’m a man who has been reduced to tears and heartbreak again. I have read the Parole Board's decision...he has only spent little over a year in open conditions, (after) 34 years in prison and after a year he’s suitable for release...is it a case of bed space needed?"
The man, who fears Barlow is still a danger to the public, added: "You cannot release this man...out of God damn respect to the victims, and the life of pain he has caused them."
As reported in the Manchester Evening News, Justice Minister, Dominic Raab, has now ordered an investigation into why several of the 13 victims were not told of the Parole Board decision after the matter was raised in the House of Commons by Blackley and Broughton MP, Graham Stringer.
The attack which destroyed a family was the first in two waves of offending conducted by Barlow over seven years. He raped women in Rochdale, Oldham, Bolton, Hindley, Hyde, Warrington, Prestwich, Blackburn, Sheffield, and Stoke. The first series of attacks was from 1981-84. In 1985 he was in prison for other offences, but then began a second series of rapes from August 1987 until his arrest in January 1988.
He was dubbed 'The Coronation Street rapist' as most of the victims were attacked in their own terraced homes, in the north of England - the majority living in Greater Manchester. Two of the attacks took place in the street.
He would spend days carrying out reconnaissance on his victims' homes to work out domestic routines, so he knew at what time husbands and partners would leave for work so he could attack women alone. He preyed upon teenagers and young mothers.
From 1981 to February 1984 there were 14 attacks in Greater Manchester, Cheshire, and Lancashire in which rape or sexual assault was committed. Police set up a joint inquiry when they realised they were linked, but it was eventually closed as unsolved.
But, three years later, in August 1987 Longmire struck again in Hindley. A woman in her 20s was raped in her terraced home. Then in September that year he attacked a schoolgirl in Warrington as she delivered newspapers. She was saved when a passer-by intervened.
As a result Det Chief Supt Jim Paterson of GMP set up a new operation based at Leigh Police Station, incorporating Cheshire and Lancashire forces and the Regional Crime Squad. As it was being established there were two more rapes in Prestwich and Hyde - once more in the early morning. The investigation was called Osprey - after the bird of prey who strikes at dawn.
A major breakthrough came from the development that year of DNA technology. Analysis of forensic evidence collected from the rapes in Hyde and Hindley showed they were committed by the same man.
However, the rapes continued, with another in Rochdale in October 1987. Since Longmire had started his second spree there had been five rapes in two months. But at the scene of one police found a 9 carat gold bracelet and used it to embark on a publicity blitz.
They were able to tell the public the man they were seeking in connection with a series of rapes had dark hair, was 6ft tall, and that the bracelet had been worn by him. It triggered a wave of calls and two were to be of huge significance.
An informant told police he thought the person they were after was called Andy and drank in a pub in Salford as he recognised the gold bracelet as having belonged to him. And an retired police officer alerted them to a case he dealt with 14 years earlier. He had help prosecute an 18-year-old for burglary and sexual assault - each offence had been in the early morning.
The ex-cop, remarkably, had kept a mugshot of the offender. He later told the BBC: "I just knew sooner or later he was going to do something and attack again. It was his eyes that struck me. He looked dangerous to me." The man in the mugshot was Longmire, as was the man in the Salford pub.
Police set up covert surveillance of Longmire's home in Swinton and eventually raided it. But no one was there. From the premises they recovered a bedsheet, and analysis of semen on it, matched the DNA profile of that recovered after the rapes in Hyde and Hindley.
Further investigations discovered that Longmire had use of a shotgun and, on December 12 1987, this was confirmed in a chilling incident at Leeds railway station. Longmire - who gave a false name- was discovered by two police officers asleep in ladies toilets after a woman had walked in and been startled by his presence.
As the officers checked him out he levelled a shotgun at one of them before fleeing. A week later there was another rape in Blackburn. This time the victim suffered stab wounds to her back and neck. The level of violence used prompted another nationwide appeal by police who took the decision to name Longmire as the man they were seeking.
Det Chief Supt Paterson would reflect later: "I had to pay tribute to officers in my force and other forces who were knocking on doors never knowing who would answer it with the knowledge in their own minds that they could be faced by a man that could most likely shoot them."
Despite the appeal and hundreds of lines of inquiry to follow up there was another rape in Stoke. Then, on January 20, 1988, two police officers in Bevington, Wirral, made a routine check after finding a man asleep in a van in a car park. He gave a false name - then fired a shotgun, twice, at the officers. The two PCs overpowered him and were later awarded the Queen's Medal for Gallantry - without knowing it they had arrested Britain's most wanted man at the time - Andrew Longmire.
The Parole Board decided at a hearing on November 30, that Barlow should be released. But victims and their families have until January 18 to lodge formal requests for a reconsideration of the decision via gmps.gmvictims@justice.gov.uk.
A Parole Board Decision Summary says: "In 2020, a panel of the Parole Board considered his case and recommended transfer to open conditions. This recommendation was accepted by the Secretary of State and Mr Barlow was transferred to open conditions in January 2021.
"Following that move, he had successfully undertaken periods of temporary release where he was escorted by a prison officer. The panel heard how well he was progressing in open conditions. In June 2022, Mr Barlow was moved back to closed conditions. After hearing from witnesses and Mr Barlow, the panel concluded that the evidence did not support the reasons for the transfer back to closed prison.
"The panel examined the release plan provided by Mr Barlow’s probation officer and weighed its proposals against assessed risks. The plan included a requirement to reside in designated accommodation as well as strict limitations on Mr Barlow’s contacts, movements and activities. The panel concluded this plan was robust enough to manage Mr Barlow in the community at this stage."
The panel also considered evidence from a prison service psychologist. A second psychologist commissioned on behalf of Mr Barlow recommended his release. The panel also considered a statement from a victim which conveyed the impact of Barlow’s crimes and the consequences of his offending.
It says his behaviour while in custody has been "good" for many years. He has obtained educational and vocational qualifications. He has completed accredited programmes to address sex offending. In 2002 he commenced treatment at the Fens Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder Unit at Whitemoor Prison. He has also spent considerable time in a regime to help people recognise and deal with their complex problems.
But the daughter of one his victims has launched an online petition calling for him to remain behind bars. She told the Manchester Evening News her mother still has nightmares three decades on - and has panic alarms around her house.
The daughter said: "My mum was in her 20s at the time, a single parent. He broke into the house. His face was covered. After that my mum never felt safe. She was terrified whenever she came across a man in the street, thinking was it him."
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