A NOTORIOUS paedophile linked to a string of sadistic child killings landed jobs at a council swimming pool and an amusement arcade – despite already being a convicted child sex offender.
Lennie Smith – once the prime suspect in the murder of Hackney schoolboy Jason Swift – worked at one of Southend seafront’s most enduring attractions.
According to the never-before seen police files, he began work there in 1979. He had received his first child sex conviction in 1977.
The Echo fought the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) for access to its files on the infamous child abuser.
After complaining to the Information Commissioner, the files were unlocked, uncovering brand new evidence of Smith’s links to Southend.
Smith lived on San Remo Parade, Westcliff, opposite the Cliffs Pavilion – an address he shared with a man called Jack Parsons.
In 2018, the very same house was identified by a known victim of the so-called “Shoebury Sex Ring” as one of the addresses he had been trafficked to by ringleader Dennis King in the early to mid-1980s.
Smith’s east London grooming gang, known as the Dirty Dozen, was linked just a few years later to the killings of three schoolboys: seven-year-old Mark Tildesley, from Wokingham; six-year-old Barry Lewis, from South London; and 14-year-old Jason Swift, from Hackney.
Barry and Jason’s bodies were both found in the Essex countryside. Mark’s has never been found.
Lambs to the Slaughter – a 1993 book about the killings – claimed Smith and Jack Parsons had used a Southend amusement arcade to groom, abuse and traffic boys while they lived together in Westcliff.
Police files uncovered by the Echo now reveal Smith did work at a Southend amusement arcade called Sunspot, which sat at the junction of Pier Hill and Marine Parade, for three years.
He earned £40 per week there as a bingo caller.
Sunspot, which had been on the seafront for decades, closed its doors amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Echo requested Jack Parson’s records, but the NPCC claimed none could be found.
The unsealed records show Smith received his first child sex conviction in 1977, when he was jailed for a year for gross indecency with a 13-year-old boy in London.
Despite this, he got a job in 1978 at a West Bromwich Council swimming pool, before moving to Southend and gaining employment at Sunspot. West Bromwich Council no longer exists.
He appeared in court in Southend in 1980, for stealing garden furniture from a house in Cambridge Road.
Smith was described in police files as a former West End “rent boy”.
According to a book called Playland, accepted as evidence at the national Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), he was known by the nickname “Skin Deep”, as he specialised in S&M and inflicted savage injuries on his clients.
But he turned to trafficking children when he grew too old for his customers.
Although he stopped giving Southend as his address after 1983 and moved to Hackney, he maintained connections to the area.
After Jason Swift fell into Smith’s clutches, the teen sent his mother a postcard from Southend.
According to Lambs to the Slaughter, after Smith was first questioned by police in the Jason Swift case, he fled to Southend.
Smith was arrested in 1986 for “conspiring with others to commit acts of buggery with boys under the age of consent”, for which he was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
He was further charged in 1987 with the murder of Jason Swift.
He got the charge dropped by arguing the main witnesses against him were fellow paedophiles.
But in 1990, he was caught trying to pick up a boy in a London toilet and sent back to prison for three years.
Meanwhile, police began investigating historic offences against a six-year-old, including buggery, which would now be charged as rape.
He received a further ten years for those crimes.
Smith died in 2006. His links to the Shoebury ring only emerged in 2018 and have never been fully investigated.
Echo legal battle unlocks police files on notorious paedophile Lennie Smith
The Echo unlocked secret police files, revealing one of Britain’s most notorious paedophiles’ links to Southend.
Lennie Smith, a prime suspect in the sexually-motivated killings of three schoolboys in the mid-1980s, was part of a brutal east London grooming gang known as the Dirty Dozen.
The Echo has used the Freedom of Information Act to unlock his police records, which reveal new details of his time in Southend.
Smith became a national hate figure in the early 1990s when he was publicly linked to the sadistic sexual abuse and murders of three young boys.
Seven-year-old Mark Tildesley, from Wokingham; six-year-old Barry Lewis, from South London; and 14-year-old Jason Swift, from Hackney, were all linked to Smith’s east London gang.
Barry and Jason’s bodies were both found in the Essex countryside. Mark’s has never been found.
Smith was charged with Jason’s murder, but got off by arguing the main witnesses against him were fellow paedophiles, who shouldn’t be trusted.
However, he was later handed a ten-year sentence for raping a six-year-old boy.
The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) fought our attempts to obtain Smith’s criminal records.
But after we reported the refusal to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as unlawful, we won our legal battle and the serial abuser’s files were released.
They included never before seen mugshots, arrest records and details of Smith’s private and professional lives – his addresses, employers and financial circumstances.
However, the names of his known associates were all redacted.
The Echo is publishing new details from the files in the same week one of the original Shoebury ring whistleblowers called for the Lampard Inquiry to investigate whether any of its victims are among the deaths it is considering.
l Our award-winning investigative series Unfinished: Shoebury’s Lost Boys is available on all major podcast platforms.
Got a tip for our investigations reporter? Email charles.thomson@newsquest.co.uk.
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