A BLACK Country MP has called on the Home Secretary to reopen the investigation into the unsolved murder of Wordsley newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater.

Speaking at Home Office Questions in the House of Commons, Dudley North MP Ian Austin urged Home Secretary Theresa May to ask the Crown Prosecution Service and the police to review the case surrounding the shotgun killing of the 13-year-old in 1978 in light of new evidence revealed in a TV documentary.

The Labour MP said: “Nobody who grew up in Dudley will forget the shocking murder of 13-year-old paperboy Carl Bridgewater.

“And no one who watched the documentary on the case will believe that the new evidence it revealed should not be looked at.”

Stourbridge News:

The Channel 4 documentary, which was screened on Sunday, focussed on a series of encounters between leading criminologist Professor David Wilson and former ambulance officer and convicted killer Bert Spencer, who was a prime suspect in the case, but it also saw Spencer’s ex-wife Janet, speaking for the first time in 40 years on record, telling programme-makers she believed her former spouse could have been the killer.

Spencer has vociferously rejected the claims he murdered the schoolboy but the documentary, which has been on everybody’s lips, prompted Mr Austin to ask during Home Office Questions: “Will the Home Secretary ask the police and the CPS to review this new evidence to see whether this case can finally be solved and whoever was responsible can be brought to justice?”

Four men, who became known as the Bridgewater Four, were found guilty of murdering Carl Bridgewater who was shot at point blank range at Yew Tree Farm, Prestwood, near Stourbridge, but in 1997 and after nearly 20 years in prison their convictions were overturned, leaving the crime unsolved.

In response to Mr Austin’s question - Policing Minister Mike Penning said: “No one will forget that terrible case, and my thoughts are still with the parents no matter how long it is since then.

“It is not the role of a PCC to instruct the police how to investigate, but we will look at it and look at the ongoing evidence, and perhaps we could meet and discuss this further.”