THE mother of a pregnant woman strangled by Bury "House of Horror" pervert Geoffrey Hardin never even knew the released killer was living on her doorstep.

And Mrs Eileen Cain has blasted police for failing to inform her that her daughter's murderer had been released.

"They should have told me. I feel very let down by the system. It was always my greatest fear that I might come face to face with him and I so easily could have," she said.

As reported in Tuesday's Bury Times, Hardin was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for keeping a terrified teenager locked in an airing cupboard for three months.

But an angry Mrs Cain said he should never have been released from prison in the first place.

Her 19 year-old daughter Tracey was befriended by Hardin when she left home in 1985. She was living in a flat with her fiance and Hardin was her neighbour.

"He was manipulative and had a hold over her. He's a huge man and she was only 4ft 8in," said Mrs Cain.

She explained how Hardin had scared off Tracey's fiance, and then forced her to live rough after torching her flat.

She was briefly reunited with her family, living with her grandmother, Ann Riley, in Rochdale.

"She was happy and we became closer than we'd ever been," recalled Mrs Cain.

The concerned mum contacted the police and Tracey was persuaded to make a statement in the belief that Hardin would not be granted bail. On November 13 Tracey agreed to be a joke kissogram for a DJ at Rochdale's Roller City Rink. It was a decision that proved fatal.

"Hardin was out on bail and somehow he managed to get her back to the flat where he strangled her," said Mrs Cain.

"I later discovered he had put her body in a bin bag, pushed it down the rubbish chute and planned to burn her. But he was arrested."

Hardin was sentenced to life at Manchester Crown Court in July 1986 where a judge branded him "callous" and a "serious danger".

Unknown to Mrs Cain he was released to a half-way house in Bury in 1997 before moving to his housing association-owned flat in Walmersley Road.

It was there that he indecently assaulted, abused, tortured and kept his 19-year-old lodger imprisoned for 14 weeks between January and April this year.

Mrs Cain, who lives just a few of miles away in Heywood, said: "My daughter's life was worth more than 11 years. This has proved he has not changed. He's still deranged and should never have been allowed back on the streets."

Shortly after her daughter's murder Mrs Cain's mother died, she believes from a broken heart.

"I feel very let down by the system and I have written to Jack Straw," she said.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.