Murder of Mark Tildesley

rdf:langString Murder of Mark Tildesley

rdf:langString Mark Tildesley

rdf:langString Wokingham, Berkshire, England, UK

rdf:langString Berkshire, England, UK

rdf:langString Murder victim

rdf:langString John Tildesley

rdf:langString Lavinia Tildesley

rdf:langString Mark Anthony Tildesley (31 August 1976 – 1 June 1984) was a seven-year-old English child who disappeared on 1 June 1984 whilst visiting a funfair in Wokingham, Berkshire. A widespread search of the Wokingham area, involving both police officers and British Army soldiers, did not locate him. Thames Valley Police initially suspected that his body was buried near Wellington Road in Wokingham, near the funfair from which he was abducted, but they now believe that he was probably buried in a shallow grave on abandoned farmland. To publicise Tildesley's disappearance, a national poster campaign was launched, with one displayed in every police station in the country. The disappearance was publicised in the local Wokingham Times, in national newspapers like The Times, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror, and on television programmes including ITV's Thames News and the premiere episode of the BBC's Crimewatch UK. Despite a massive public response, however, Tildesley was still not located. In 1989, Tildesley's disappearance was linked to the Operation Orchid investigation into missing children. In 1990 as part of this investigation, it emerged that on the night he disappeared, Tildesley had been abducted, drugged, tortured, raped and murdered by a London-based paedophile gang led by Sidney Cooke. A member of the gang, Leslie Bailey, was charged with murder in 1991 and was given two life sentences after pleading guilty to manslaughter the following year; he was murdered in prison in 1993. A memorial service for Tildesley was held and a memorial bench placed at the entrance to the fairground site. A headstone was also placed in a nearby burial ground.

rdf:langString Murder by drugging, gang rape and strangulation