DETECTIVES investigating the brutal murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed a quarter of a century ago have named a former Todmorden and Bacup man as a prime suspect.

Detective Chief Supt Max McLean, who is leading inquiries into Lesley's death, said they wanted to question 56-year-old Raymond Hewlett.

Stefan Kiszko was wrongly convicted of Lesley's murder in one of the country's most notorious miscarriages of justice.

He served 16 years in prison before DNA evidence proved he was innocent. He died of a heart attack shortly after being released from jail.

Raymond Hewlett lived in Todmorden from the early 1960s until the mid 1970s. It is understood that while working as a fairground worker he may also have lived in Bacup for a short time.

He left for Southern Ireland in the days after Lesley's body was found.

He is also known to have travelled to north Scotland.

While in Todmorden he lived in Dineley Avenue on the Ashenhurst council estate.

Few people now remember him and even the houses are no longer the same. They were knocked down to ground level before being rebuilt by the council more than a decade ago.

One man who has lived on the estate since those days said he remembered Mr Hewlett who had also lived at another address in Todmorden not far away. He said: "I also knew him from the time he lived at Walsden. (between Todmorden and Rochdale) I did not knew him well but he had a wife, Susan, and three children I think. He just just a normal guy, he seemed OK."

The house in Dineley Avenue where he lived is long gone and has been replaced by a block of flats.

Det Chief Supt McLean said police would like to talk to Mr Hewlett who had lived in Todmorden for a considerable time after leaving the Scots Guards.

Lesley's body was found on moorland above Ripponden on October 5, 1975, three days after she was abducted while running an errand from her home in Rochdale.

She was stabbed twelve times in the chest and head with a small knife.

Inland Revenue clerk Stefan Kiszko was convicted of murder, only to be proved innocent 16 years later.

It is the first time that police have openly named Hewlett as a suspect following an investigation into the case by a national newspaper.

Det Chief Supt McLean said: "He was considered a suspect right from the start in 1975 but then we had the conviction of Stefan Kiszko, a wrongful conviction as it proved."

He said that although police wanted to know the present whereabouts of Mr Hewlett he was not the only suspect in the case.

Hewlett, a native of Blackpool was interviewed in 1992 following the abduction and rape of a girl in Blackpool four years earlier.

His present whereabouts is not known.

An incident room has been running from Brighouse police station for the last ten years. Anyone with information about the case or about Mr Hewlett's whereabouts is asked to ring the incident room on 01484 405275.