The lawyer who represented a Merseyside-born serial killer has said he doesn’t regret taking on the case - despite the mental impact it would have on him.
It was a few days shy of Christmas 1995 when Dylan Rhys Jones - a then young and ambitious lawyer - got the call asking him to represent Nazi-obsessed killer Peter Moore at a North Wales police station. Up until then, Mr Jones only knew of Moore as a local shopkeeper and cinema owner who had previously used his firm for the handling of his mum's estate following her death.
Little did Mr Jones, who had been working as a criminal lawyer for five years by then, know the case of St Helens-born Peter Moore would take over his life for the next 12 months and affect him mentally for years to come.
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Now 58, Mr Jones told the ECHO: “I was aware he had been in the office where I worked a few times but I hadn’t dealt with him myself until I received this call. I was asked to come over straight away and I didn’t have any clue what it was all about at that stage.
“When I learnt about the accusations it then became the most serious offence that a client of mine had faced. To have this case presented to me was a challenge but an exciting challenge.
“As a criminal lawyer, it was what I was trained to do and it was something I was willing to test myself against. I’m glad I was involved with the experience - from a lawyer’s point of view, it was a unique case.”
Moore, one of Britain's most twisted killers, is now nearly three decades into his life sentence for murdering and mutilating four men - Henry Roberts, Edward Carthy, Keith Randles and Tony Davies.
On the surface, Moore was “well-spoken, polite, and non-threatening”, according to Mr Jones. But under his veneer of respectability, he was a sadistic killer who butchered his victims 'for fun', in a series of horrific crimes over a period of four months.
Hearing about the killings and seeing photos of the victims eventually got the better of Mr Jones as he went through a nervous breakdown and experienced suicidal thoughts.
The Wrexham Glyndwr University senior lecturer said: “It took over my life. The case was so much, I was willing to do the hours but it took its toll after a while. At the time, it was something I felt I had to do. I was trying to be Superman and do the case all by myself - what I hadn't realised was the intensity of the case is something that nowadays you would go to counselling for.
“My health deteriorated for a considerable amount of time afterwards. It wasn’t till 2019 - 24 years later - I felt it was the right time for me, mentally, to speak out.
"Only then I was comfortable enough to go back and relive the horrible events of the case. I’m glad I have unburdened the story but it was something I wasn’t willing to do for a long time."
Dubbed the ‘Man in Black’ for his dark leather clothes, Moore lived in Rhyl, Wales, but his victims came from across Merseyside and North Wales. Edward Carthy was a 28-year-old man from Birkenhead who was stabbed to death by Moore after the pair met in a Liverpool gay bar, Paco’s, on Stanley Street.
Mr Carthy is thought to have been Moore’s second victim but his body was the last to be found - with his killer drawing a diagram to help police find where he was buried in a dense forest near Ruthin. Mr Jones travelled to the forest to find the spot where Mr Carthy’s body was disposed of.
He said: “It was a very unpleasant case. The man had been taken from Liverpool and found himself in this dark, horrible, frightening forest where he would be slaughtered by Moore. It was an appalling murder. His body was laying at the side of a roadway. It was callous and awful.”
Moore was arrested in December 1995 and sentenced to life in prison the following year.
When police searched Moore’s home they found items belonging to his victims both in the house and in a garden pond. A knife bearing traces of the blood of a number of men was found in a bag belonging to Moore.
On a shelf in Moore’s bedroom were a police helmet, two German military caps and a pair of long, black boots. Hanging on a cupboard alongside his bed was a truncheon and a sergeant’s uniform was found in his wardrobe.
During his trial, Moore told the jury the crimes were committed by an imaginary gay lover he called "Jason" - after the killer Jason Voorhies in the Friday the 13th films. However, Mr Jones said the painting of Moore as a “gay killer” is wrong as he believes Moore “didn’t care who his victims were, he was going to kill them anyway”.
While writing his book, The Man in Black, Mr Jones had arranged to visit Moore at Wakefield High-Security Prison. Days before the two planned to meet, Moore cancelled the meeting - in what Mr Jones believes was an “attempt to manipulate the narrative one last time”.
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