The lawyer who represented Wales’ worst serial killer has described how the case led him to a nervous breakdown and suicidal thoughts years later.
Dylan Jones was young and ambitious when he got the call asking him to represent Peter Moore at Llandudno Police Station a few days before Christmas, 1995.
Dubbed as “the man in black”, Moore committed a series of violent sexual assaults on men over 20 years in north Wales and Merseyside, culminating in the murder of four men in the space of three months in 1995. That year he killed Henry Roberts, Edward Carthy, Keith Randles and Tony Davies in violent, frenzied attacks, with each victim sustaining multiple stab wounds.
Read more: Faces of the murderers jailed in Wales in 2021
Despite the “toll” representing Moore had on him Mr Jones said he did not regret defending the killer.
The then 30-year-old lawyer knew Moore as a local shopkeeper and cinema owner from Kinmel Bay who had sometimes used his firm for business matters.
Driving to the police station he felt a mounting sense of trepidation. He knew there had been a recent murder and it was unusual to be put through to a custody sergeant urging him to get there without delay.
It turned out that the “well spoken and apparently measured” client was a serial killer. The case would take over the young lawyer’s life for the next 12 months and affect him for years to come.
Stalking the north Wales coast, Moore is also thought to have been responsible for numerous physical and sexual assaults on lone men across Wales and Liverpool for decades before he turned to killing. The former manager of a cinema in Bagillt, Flintshire, was eventually convicted of murdering four men within as many months in a killing spree in which he mutilated his victims.
The crimes shocked North Wales and the nation as a whole, with Moore found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment in November, 1996, almost a year after he summoned Mr Jones to represent him in December, 1995.
“It was a few days before Christmas when I got the call from a friend of Peter Moore to say he was in custody and had asked to see me,” the former criminal lawyer, who is now a senior law lecturer at Wrexham University, academic, recalled.
“As a firm we had represented Peter Moore before in small business matters and when his mother died we did the probate.
“I phoned the police station and was put through to the custody sergeant who told me to get there straight away. That was unusual. I could have said no to representing him. But I was a 30-year-old lawyer, full of ambition and if you get a case like this it’s unlikely you are going to say no. I was excited about the challenge, but nothing prepares you for a case like this.”
Putting his professional hat on, Mr Jones tried to put emotion to one side as he heard the ghastly evidence, confession and retraction. He knew he needed to get everything right, for the case to be conducted properly.
He listened as Moore communicated how pleased he was with what he saw as killings well done.
“It was strange because when you spoke to Peter Moore he was very polite and very well spoken. He appeared considerate of others. That makes the whole thing all the more bizarre and scary. There was a facade that was well spoken and measured. That made the process of speaking to him easier but when he tells you things like “I killed that person for fun” that chilled your blood.
“When you are sitting there and he says he thought he did a good job of killing someone that is chilling when it’s delivered in such a calm, reasoned way.”
At the same time as keeping his professional duty at the front of his mind, the lawyer grappled with what caused Moore to turn to murder.
“I am a Sunday school boy with a Welsh Methodist upbringing. You tend to reflect on that and think - what is this man? There was a certain air about him. I am hesitant to say evil, but an air of someone who had done something really bad and was satisfied with what he had done. He knew he had committed horrendous crimes and was quite pleased he had done them. That chills one’s blood. There was no remorse. He thought he had done a good job. He is not psychiatrically ill, according to tests we had done. He could not plead insanity.”
Later he concluded that Moore was a psychopath.
Alone in the cells with the "Man in Black" for hours at the time he said he never felt afraid.
“I spent countless hours with him in prisons in Wakefield and Durham and in police interviews over four or five days sitting in his police cell talking to him.
“I was never frightened or concerned for my wellbeing. I was alone with him sitting in a cell but did not feel in danger. He saw me as being on his side. My duty as his lawyer was to make sure everything was conducted in the right way.”
But hearing the grotesque details and dealing with the case had an impact that no amount of professional expertise could avoid.
Moore described how he killed for fun, how stabbing someone felt like putting a knife through butter. His victims were left to die alone and he had not a shred of remorse.
“Inevitably it is a very emotional thing to be confronted by facts of murders that are out of the ordinary and thoroughly unpleasant,” said Mr Jones.
"Nothing prepared me as a lawyer, or the police involved, to deal with the nature of the murders Peter Moore was responsible for. That’s something I am conscious of now. The effect it had on me I would not have countenanced at the time.
“In the end the case took its toll on me. I had a nervous breakdown nine or 10 years later. The case still haunted me. I had PTSD and flashbacks of people running up behind me and stabbing me. I was unable to concentrate properly. I was in hospital in the end. My best friend came to my house. I had planned to commit suicide and he took me to the local psychiatric hospital. I got the help I needed.”
But he said he still had no regrets in taking the case.
“From my experience, mental health is something you are always recovering from and you have to be conscious of the path you’ve trodden.
“I don’t regret doing the case. I don’t even regret having the breakdown. I learned so much from it about myself, my friends and family and who you can and can’t rely on.”
Going on to a successful career Mr Jones dealt with more high profile cases before leaving the profession after 20 years and branching out into teaching. While keen to get stuck into his new role with Wrexham Glyndwr University, he is also likely to remain in the spotlight having sold the filming rights to his book - The Man in Black - which details his insight into the Moore case.
Mr Jones also has no doubts that students will ask him about the case. He hopes students and law professionals get more help now in dealing with the mental health effects of cases they deal with. But he will remind his students that people like Moore are rare.
“He’s a psychopath and a psychopathic killer. You don’t meet many of them. He is the only one I have met in my career. That’s something I tell my students - these people are few and far between.”
For himself, he said he would be interested in meeting Moore in prison, but doubts that will happen.
They communicated by letter while Mr Jones wrote a book about the case in 2019, but that stopped when the killer suddenly turned against the idea and threatened legal action in autumn last year.
The action was struck off by a court, but Moore had already sent letters giving an insight into his background and offering a bizarre apology to the people of north Wales which Mr Jones never included in the book. He saw the killer's attempt at stopping the book as his continued desire to "control the narrative".
“Peter Moore explained to me he had quite a difficult upbringing. He idolised his mother and was a mummy’s boy. He said his father was a bully. He felt excluded. I have spoken to contemporaries and teachers from his school who say he was an outcast. He mixed with the gay scene and became more and more extreme.
“It would be interesting to see him and see if he has changed after 25 years in prison, to see whether there is any remorse or contrition or whether he now accepts what he did was wrong. It would be interesting to meet Peter Moore again. But I don’t think that will happen now."
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