*Please be aware that the details that I will be sharing in this post will be disturbing. I will try as always to be as sensitive as I can be with the details without taking away the facts of the case. Please feel free to email me at jocaledoniankitty@gmail.com if you have any questions or specific comments regarding this post*
The picture you see at the beginning of this post is the true face of evil and it belongs to that of a sick monster by the name of Sidney Cooke otherwise known as 'Hissing Sid' or the leader of the infamous paedophile ring 'The Dirty Dozen'. He was the ringleader of other sick and perverted monsters who carried out numerous abductions, r*pes and murders of young, vulnerable boys around London as well as elsewhere in the UK from the 1960s all the way through to the 1980s. The reason he is no longer committing cruel and evil crimes towards children is because he is currently rotting behind bars where he belongs. Having him off the streets and locked away is a positive thing but it's unfortunate that he is still alive and living off of the tax payers money at the ripe old age of 98! It's hard to believe that one of the worst and most sadistic predatory paedophile's that Britain has ever seen has made it to the age of 98 especially with his sickening lifestyle he had led as a free man for decades.
In the UK just hearing the name 'Sidney Cooke' just sends a chill down many a spine but outside of the UK there may be people who are unaware of his crimes, after all we sadly live in a world where every country has it's demons and monsters who commit all sorts of atrocities. In every country around the world they will sadly have their own version of Sidney Cooke.
In this post, as stated at the beginning, I will be sharing disturbing details that will make your blood boil especially as Sidney Cooke and his accomplices never expressed remorse for their crimes, in fact they would brag, celebrate, tell anyone who would listen (or be forced to listen) over and over again about what they had done and what they would like to do if they ever made it out of prison. The likes of Sidney Cooke are utterly terrifying because this monster who has no remorse, is addicted to sexually abusing young boys to the point where the assaults are so severe, traumatic and brutal that the young victim dies before being disposed of like a piece of trash with the help of other men he had bonded with. No matter the age of Sidney Cooke he would never stop being a danger to children and enlisted the help of others to join in on his crimes.
To this day it is still unclear how many deaths of young boys that Sidney Cooke and his accomplices are responsible for as the gang's crimes came to light in the 1980s. Sidney made no secret of how he enjoyed his evil acts against defenceless children and if he wasn't bragging to the police about previous incidences, he was telling whoever he shared a jail cell with, about the graphic details of numerous crimes. It seemed Sidney enjoyed reliving these horrific attacks and murders where the majority took place in the run down area of Kingsmead estate in Hackney, East London. Here he had set up a flat with other paedophiles and it was here that vulnerable boys would go through hell, some were homeless runaways, some were rent boys and others were abducted by the gang from a fairground as Sidney worked there on one of the amusements. Sidney would use his job at this fairground to lure young boys and they would either be abducted or lured back to the flat at Kingsmead with promises of sweets, alcohol and money.
Sidney and his evil gang would take the boys back to the flat and subject them to horrific sexual assaults that would last hours, sometimes days. They later claimed that some of these boys were let go after the sick men were finished with the abuse but quite a number of young boys who are thought to be linked to the gang have never been found. There are some cases of missing boys who vanished around the time that Sidney and his gang were operating in London but there is no evidence or remains of any of these missing boys to convict the gang, only gossip from cellmates who claim that Sidney and other members of the gang confessed to murdering numerous boys.
One of the boys, Jason Swift was only 14 years old when he was sleeping rough on the streets of London. His family begged him to come home but for whatever reason he chose not to return although he did say that he had plans to return to his family. It was revealed that Jason had been doing some sex work in exchange for money. The handsome young boy was soon spotted by Sidney and co and taken back to the flat where each member of the gang agreed to pay Jason £5 to have sex with him. They gave the boy alcohol and drugs then proceeded to take turns and the whole horrific ordeal went on for days, they just constantly abused him until his body couldn't take it anymore and he died. The horrible details (and I'm trying to be as sensitive as I can be here) of Jason being forcefully held down by these men, the brutality of it all was just sickening and the stuff of nightmares. When Jason was deceased (death was later determined to be by strangulation according to a coroner's report) they wrapped him up and carried his body out of the flat and this was said to have been a regular occurrence, the gang being seen carrying out what looked like a rolled up piece of rug or carpet and placing it in a car. Jason's body was later found in a shallow grave just outside of London.
The paedophile gang led by Sidney Cooke were said to have included Robert Oliver, Lennie Smith, Leslie Bailey, Steven Barrell, (with close links to two prolific paedophiles) Bill Malcolm and former Scoutmaster Brian Turner. Over the years various names have been linked to Sidney Cooke, even serial killer couple Fred and Rose West (Sidney was born on the 18th of April 1927 in Stroud, Gloucestershire where the Wests were from) as well as certain politicians but that's a whole other rabbit hole to go down and I want to focus on this part of the story in this post.
Leslie Bailey had been arrested and jailed for his part in the abuse of a young boy and whilst in prison he bragged about the gang's sickening activities at that den of horror involving these poor boys. Word got back to investigators that Leslie was bragging and they wanted to see if he would reveal to then some of the details especially as they had a series of missing children on their books and one they were interested in talking to him about was six year old Barry Lewis. The police believed that the murders of Jason Swift and Barry Lewis were connected as both boys were found near to each other and just days apart. To their surprise, Leslie spilled the horrific details and told the police that Barry abducted by the gang and subjected to a horrific sexual assault where he had been drugged and passed around each of the gang members until he was near death. After these monsters had finished these sickening act they conducted the same routine with Barry, wrapped his body up and took him out to the car but this time the plan had a problem. Barry had managed to suddenly move and it was soon clear he was alive and began to try and sit up in the car. Leslie confessed that he had murdered Barry as the child cried and screamed for his mother, Leslie suffocated the six year old child, his body later disposed of in the same manner as Jason's.
Now the rest of the gang were under the spotlight for not only Barry's horrific abuse and murder but Leslie's other information that he shared with the police about Jason. The investigators now knew that the murders of the two boys were linked and by the same perpetrators. One of the appalling facts about this case is the way in which authorities handled the murder of Jason Swift. Originally the gang were charged with murder and quite rightly so but they couldn't prove who was the one who murdered Jason as each of them had a part to play in his demise, shockingly their sentences were changed to manslaughter and Sidney Cooke went from being given 19 years (which was disgusting for the horrendous r*pe and murder of a child and not to mention he was suspected of numerous child murders, authorities just didn't have the evidence) which was bad enough but worst was to come when he ended up just serving nine years and was out again on the streets. The murder of Jason was painted as this homosexual orgy that went wrong partly due to the fact that Jason had been working the streets (so there may have been some judgement there) and had been seen with the gang previously.
A high profile missing case involving the sudden disappearance of a seven year old boy by the name of Mark Tildesley was brought up in Leslie Bailey's conversations with the police. He claimed that Mark had fallen victim to Sidney and the gang (this was later confirmed by other gang members). Another known paedophile Lennie Smith along with Sidney Cooke was named as the killers of the young boy but due to the fact the other accusers were also part of the gang and paedophiles themselves, authorities claimed that their word could not be taken seriously especially with the lack of evidence. Leslie was the only one who confessed to being part of Mark's murder but for some reason he got the book thrown at him and was sentenced to two life sentences. He died in prison in 1993 after being murdered by two cellmates.
(Mark Tildesley. Picture credit: Wikipedia)
Sidney Cooke was released in 1998 to public outcry and during this time the police had re-opened various unsolved cases of young boys disappearing around the time that the gang were active. Sidney got arrested again in 1999 he was found guilty of the sexual abuse of two brothers and given a five year term, when this five year term was up he was refused parole. Since then he had continued to be refused parole because he is deemed a danger to children and he himself has admitted that if he is released he will abuse more children. It seems he does not want to be released from prison as he enjoys boasting to investigators of his crimes with not a shred of remorse. He has also told the police that he knows where Mark Tildesley is buried but he refuses to reveal the location.
Just recently (in June 2025 at time of me writing this post) he was denied parole for the twelfth time and has been the victim of an attack by a fellow prisoner. Sidney was bashed in the face a few times with a metal flask.
It's heartbreaking and infuriating to know that Sidney Cooke and his evil associates could be responsible for over 20 r*pes and murders of innocent young boys but proper justice will never be seen by those poor boys families due to mishandling of investigations and lack of evidence. I think going by the timeline of the missing boys, their profiles, the areas that they went missing it fits in with how the gang operated but Sidney Cooke who was the proven leader of all of this sickening hell, has hinted at all of these suspected cases and continued to play games with the authorities. At 98 years of age he has nothing to lose, he knows he is going to die in prison and he simply does not care, he never cared. He doesn't have one shred of decency in him just to tell the loved ones of Mark Tildesley where his remains are buried, he is 100% rotten to the core.
Isn't it sickening that we have amazing people who pass away at a young age due to a terrible illness or they have their lives taken as in the case of these poor young boys, but some unimaginable monsters like Sidney Cooke are still alive, at this point he is just an oxygen thief as well as a waste of tax payers money. Imagine at the age of 98 still being a cold-hearted creature who still lives off the memories of the pain, cruelty and suffering that you inflicted on defenceless young boys. One wonders if Sidney ever has a moment (I highly doubt it to be honest) where he has a moment of fear when he thinks about the moment he dies and what is on the other side for him. I hope he lives in fear but you know he would never reveal that, he continues to be the monster he always was and the fact that authorities are keeping him locked up is about time they did something right for a change. We are all fed up of seeing dangerous people being given light sentences in the UK or sometimes no sentence at all and we are all fed up of people being locked up for the most pathetic of reasons.
These horrible men the so-called 'Dirty-Dozen' (what a pathetic term to call them and it sort of downplays how evil and twisted they really were) are responsible for wiping out so many young lives due to their own sickening depravity and some of the members of this gang had been sexually abused themselves in their childhoods. You would think they would turn out differently having known the pain that a child goes though in such horrible, traumatic situations but not these types of perverts, they are abused themselves and they go on to abuse others. I just want to make it clear here that not all victims of childhood sexual abuse go on to be abusers, some survivors go on to help others and become amazing people. These people who took part in this gang were just pure monsters and sometimes there's just no answers for the evil in this world. But as I mentioned before at the start of this post, we live with the sad fact and reality that there is hundreds of Sidney Cooke's out there in the world and I don't say that to give everyone fear, I say that as a harsh reality. Literally in this world you have to have eyes on the back of your head, keep yourself and your loved ones as safe as you possibly can.
You often hear people saying that back in their day things were better, safer, kids could play outside etc but I sit here as someone who has written about hundreds upon hundreds of cases from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, right up to the present day and when it comes to child safety and people's safety in general, we still had some of the most horrific murderers and child predators back then, we just hear about it more now because of modern technology.
I wish the families of these boys has answers, will Sidney Cooke ever change his cold, black heart and give these families some closure and peace, even on his death bed? I hate to say it but I doubt it. He's like another Ian Brady & Myra Hindley he'll take his sick secrets to his unmarked grave.
RIP to Jason, Barry, Mark and all of the lost boys who have never been identified, who never will be identified and who have yet to be identified. Maybe one day someone's remains will be found and a grieving family will finally find some peace but in the meantime we pray for them and out hearts go out to them.
Further Reading & Resources:
- Sidney Cooke: Article | The Sun
- Deaths of Children | Islington Survivors
- Kingsmead Estate: Article | The Guardian
- Sidney Cooke: Article | Daily Mail
- Jason Swift: Article | Islington Gazette
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Stay safe x
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