LISTEN: Midlothian man who helped capture killer Robert Black to have street named after him
David Herkes' quick thinking helped save a 6 year old's life.
The man who helped capture serial killer Robert Black is to have a street in Midlothian named after him.
Only the quick thinking of David Herkes in July 1990 prevented a six-year-old Borders schoolgirl becoming evil Black's latest victim and his observance also brought an end to the lorry driver's reign of terror on young girls across the UK.
Mr Herkes died almost four years ago in Tweedbank, at the age of 75.
He had been a prominent figure in his native Gorebridge, Midlothian, throughout most of his working life before he and his late wife, Christine, took semi-retirement in the Borders village of Stow.
Now, following a campaign, a street on the new Greenhall development in Gorebridge is to be called the David Herkes Way.
David's daughter Awdri Doyle told our reporter John Callan about her father:
David and Christine Herkes operated their own funeral business in Gorebridge for decades before moving to Stow to take over the village post office and general store.
They quickly became popular figures within the village but it was his actions on the afternoon of Saturday, July 14, 1990 that Mr Herkes will always be remembered.
He was in his garden when he noticed a neighbour's daughter disappear behind a parked white van. Police across the country had spent over a decade hunting for a serial child murderer.
When Mr Herkes saw the girl's feet vanish and the van speed off towards Edinburgh he immediately contacted the police and jotted down the number plate.
Black turned his van around in a lay-by north of Stow to return through the village and head for Galashiels - but police were waiting.
A local officer pulled open the back doors of the vehicle to discover his own daughter tied up in a sleeping bag, with tape over her mouth.
Mr Herkes was later presented with meritorious awards by the police. Black, who died in prison at the start of this year, was found guilty of killing 10-year-old Sarah Harper, five-year-old Caroline Hogg, Susan Maxwell, 11, and nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy.
He was also linked with up to a dozen other similar murders all over Europe during the 1980s. David Herkes spent his final years at Craw Wood care home in Tweedbank before his death in 2012.