Hello everyone. Welcome back to Blood Ties. I'm Geoffrey Wansaw. I'm here on my own today

because Molly, as ever, he's jolly busy. But I thought I'd doansaw. I'm here on my own today because Molly, as ever, is jolly busy.

But I thought I'd do a story that I think is one of the most remarkable in British criminal history,

although comparatively little told, for reasons that become clear as we go through.

It is both dramatic and tragic. What I would say is it's

one of those ones that lives in the mind long after you've heard it. So if you're up for this and prepared for it, this is a story of pottery cottage.

Our story begins in HMP Lester with an in

inmate called William Hughes who was born in Preston in Lancashire on the 8th of August, 1946.

He's the first of six children.

But I'm afraid he was pretty difficult from the outset.

He was given to terrible antisocial behaviour.

And he got his first arrest for petty theft at the age of 14.

Unfortunately, he then became a litany of unhappiness.

He went to approved school. They were then approved schools in this country.

We were talking about 1997, 76.

He then went to Borstal and the first of his multiple prison terms came in

1966 at the age of 20.

He had a reputation for violence which brought him the nickname of Mad Billy.

Nevertheless, in 1972, he married a mother of one called Jean,

and they had a daughter together called Nicola, who was born in August 1972.

But Billy Hughes, mad Billy, was constantly on the move, constantly in trouble with the law.

And the relationship didn't go well.

...