Candle-lit vigil to mark 40th anniversary of murder of schoolgirl Lisa Hession

The day after she died there was a new Number One in the pop charts - Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid. To mark the 40th anniversary of that song it has been re-released.

Sir Paul McCartney, Harry Styles, and Ed Sheeran, will be among the artists featuring in the new mix of the single as well as voices and performances from the original and 2004 and 2014 renditions.

Masterminded in 1984 by Bob Geldof, the original sold one million copies in its first week. Lisa Jane Hession was a pop-obsessed teenager, and would have been dancing at a party to the song and the previous chart-topping The Power Of Love, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, just two hours before her body was found in an alleyway.

The re-release of the charity song will trigger poignant memories for Lisa's family and friends, and many who live in the close-knit former mining community of Leigh, to the Western edge of Greater Manchester, on the old Lancashire coalfield.

Ron Parry, and his son, Ronald, 13, had been walking their dog when they found Lisa's body in a ginnel behind Rugby Road, Leigh, at five minutes before midnight on Saturday, December 8, 1984.

She was lying on her back in the recess which led to garage doors. She had been 200 yards from home and safety.

As Mr Parry sent his son to raise the alarm, undertaker Bill Hayes tried to revive Lisa. The details he later recalled were vivid indicators of what happened to the teenager in her final moments.

"The little girl was lying on her back," he said. "She was very cold. There was a thin black mark around her neck and she appeared to have a black eye."

On the day she died, Lisa, aged 14 years and 8 months, had been to a small, early Christmas party at a friend’s house in Leigh Road, about two miles away from her home.

Her mother, Christine, had allowed her to go on condition she was back for 10.30pm. Her reward for getting back on time was to be allowed to go to her school's disco two nights later.

Lisa, a Bedford High School pupil, left the party at about 10.15pm, kissing her boyfriend, Craig Newell, then 16, goodbye at the gate.

She walked through the town centre and onto St Helens Road, before she was seen turning into Buck Street. At that point she was a minute's walk from her front door in Bonnywell Road.

But someone either marched her or persuaded her to walk into that ginnel behind Rugby Road. Once there she was strangled with her own T-shirt as the attacker held his other hand over her mouth during a sexually motivated assault. Her killer has never been found.

On December 8 this year a candle-lit vigil is being staged to mark the 40th anniversary of her murder. It is being organised by Ryan Daly and Andrea Aldred Ashcroft, who set up a Justice for Lisa Hession Facebook page.

Ryan said: "To mark the 40th anniversary of Lisa's murder, myself and Andrea are holding a candle-lit vigil. The people of Leigh and other surrounding areas are welcome to join to remember Lisa and her mother Christine Hession, who sadly passed away in 2016 without getting justice or an answer as to who killed her only child.

"We are asking people to bring a tea light candle. We are meeting on Sunday, December 8 on West Bridgewater Street outside Christ Church Pennington school, Leigh, Lancashire, WN7 4HB at 6.30pm.

"We are setting off at 6.45pm. We are walking along West Bridgewater Street then onto St Helens Road, following the route that Lisa should have walked on the night she died - St Helens Road, Buck Street, Poplar Street, and then onto Bonnywell Road. Andrea and I will lead the walk.

"The people who now live in Lisa’s house on Bonnywell Road have very kindly agreed for some flowers to be left outside of Lisa’s old home. Only one of us will walk down the path. If one of Lisa’s friends or family would like to do this I would ask them to let us know, if not I will do it.

"We will continue to walk down Bonnywell Road, and onto Pennington Road and we will walk down Rugby Road, so the people of the street can remember her as it affected a lot of people on that street, and that estate. We will not be walking down the alley behind Rugby Road. We will leave flowers on Newlands Road near the backs though. Then we will go back to Newlands Road, and have a minute's silence."

Ryan added: "Also we will be playing three songs on the walk which Lisa’s friends suggested. They will be 'Hold Me Now' by The Thompson Twins, 'You Really Got Me' by The Kinks, which was Lisa's favourite song, and 'China Girl' by David Bowie, as she was a massive fan of his. The idea behind the walk is lighting a symbolic path for Lisa that would have led her home."

Andrea is convinced the answer to who killed Lisa lies in Leigh, or even the estate on which she lived and died.

"I think Lisa's killer was infatuated with her," she says, her voice cracked with emotion. "She was a very liked girl. Where she lived is where he is from.

"She had rejected him in some kind of way as a friend for coming on too strong. And that led him into wanting to be with her more and more in his head, to eventually doing what he did on that night."

Ryan and Andrea's Facebook page can be found here.

Anyone with information can contact the GMP Cold Case Unit on 0161 856 5978 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. There is a £50,000 reward for information leading to the identification and conviction of the killer.