The part-time taxi driver accused of murdering Lesley Molseed was a philanderer throughout his 24-year marriage who once told his wife: “You can divorce me now . . . I have interfered with a young girl,” a court was told yesterday.

Ronald Castree, 54, went on to appear before Rochdale magistrates, where he pleaded guilty to gross indecency against a child aged 9, his former wife, Beverley, said.

His trial at Bradford Crown Court was told that he lured that child into his taxi and took her to a derelict house, where he assaulted her. She managed to kick him, break free and run home.

Mrs Castree, 52, was giving evidence yesterday via a video link from elsewhere in the court complex on the second day of his trial for the murder of Lesley, who was 11 when she was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death after being abducted while on an errand for her mother on October 5, 1975. Mr Castree, of Shaw, near Oldham, denies the charge Stefan Kiszko, a tax clerk from Rochdale, was wrongly convicted of the murder and spent 16 years in prison in a miscarriage of misjustice that would become notorious.

In her evidence Mrs Castree recalled the events from the early days of her marriage more than three decades ago. The couple were married in 1973 and divorced in 1997. She said that he was never faithful and would regularly disappear from their home, returning later with no explanation of where he had been.

At the time of Lesley’s disappearance Mr Castree was working as a clerk for a local firm and as a part-time taxi driver in the evenings and at weekends. Mrs Castree had recently given birth to her first son, the result of a relationship with another man.

On October 3 she was taken to hospital in Oldham suffering from deep-vein thrombosis, and remained there until October 9, the day after the discovery of Lesley’s body on moorland near by. Her husband stayed at home alone and would visit her in the evenings between 6pm and 8pm.

She agreed with an assertion by Rodney Jameson, QC, for the defence, that her husband was never faithful during the course of the marriage. He asked: “He had really a rather large number of girlfriends around and about?” Mrs Castree replied: “There was always a third party in our marriage. That was the problem.”

She has told police during interviews: “Ron has never been faithful throughout our marriage and has always had affairs with other women.”

Referring to the assault on the nine-year-old girl, Mr Jameson asked: “Is it right he came home one day and told you what he had done and the details?” She replied: “Yes, he came home that night and said, ‘You can divorce me now’. I said, ‘Why would I want to do that?’ He said, ‘The police had me in and I am in trouble. I interfered with a young girl’. I never knew the full details of that incident until years later.”

Mrs Castree said that her husband spent much of his time working at his two jobs but rarely confided in her.

She said: “I never knew where he was half the time. I never knew for certain where he was . . . He didn’t talk very much about what he did when he went out without us.”

April Garrett, 70, Lesley’s mother, sat with her two daughters in the public gallery listening intently to the evidence.

Earlier, a pathologist told the jury that Lesley had died from 12 stab wounds to her body, including her heart and lung. Professor Christopher Milroy, who has reviewed the work of the late pathologist who conducted the postmortem examination, said that one stab wound penetrated the shoulder blade, indicating that substantial force was used.

The evidence suggested that she was attacked on the spot where she was found.

The trial continues.

Times Recommends

• Times Christmas appeal: Letter from the Editor
• Conferences — what a waste of money
• Schools supremo learns a painful lesson