WHEN ‘Britain’s Most Wanted Man’ was sentenced in 1988, The Bolton Evening News produced a special supplement on one of the country’s most notorious serial rapists.

FORMER Bolton Evening News Crime Reporter John Horne remembers the climate of fear which enveloped the town when Longmire was on the loose.

“There was a tension on the streets and in the pubs from people who read the Bolton Evening News and knew what was going on out there,” said Mr Horne, aged 54.

“There were more bobbies on the beat and on the streets than normal. People who knew Longmire were scared of him.

“He was a really nasty piece of work and it wouldn’t surprise me if there are other cold cases which come to light that are connected to him.”

The troubled life and crimes of Andrew Longmire began early. Longmire’s step-father, Tony, told the Bolton Evening News in 1988 that Andrew began stealing while a pupil at St Michael’s CE Primary School in Green Lane, Great Lever.

For several years, Tony and his wife, Lillian, paid back what Andrew had stolen and the victims did not report the boy — until he stole from the school and was prosecuted.

He was sent to a special school in Shropshire, which Mr Longmire believed did more harm than good. Andrew returned to the family home in Loxham Street, Great Lever, but soon left to live in Blackpool where he married his 19-year-old girlfriend, Sandra, and the couple moved to Kearlsey.

But the marriage soon broke down and Mr and Mrs Longmire saw little of their son after that.

The net closes in A former Bolton police officer pinpointed Longmire as the Coronation Street rapist. The Farnworth officer recognised the description after he arrested Longmire for an attack in a park.

Forensic experts used what was then pioneering DNA technology to bring the rapist to justice, as part of Operation Osprey, led by Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Paterson.

Police had never before linked as many offences to one man using DNA testing, which was carried out at the Forensic Science lab in Chorley and positively linked Longmire to five of the rapes.

After the case, DNA testing was rolled out to all police forces.

‘They’ll never take me alive’ Longmire told friends that the police would never take him alive.

Armed with two shotguns and a bag of ammunition, he went on the run for three months before two unarmed PCs stared death in the face to capture the sex fiend following a dramatic “one-way” shoot-out in a Wirral pub car park.

PCs Ken Owen and Derek Murphy spotted Longmire, who was wanted in connection with 23 sex attacks, asleep in a van which had been parked with its engine running, lights on and windscreen wipers going.

They thought he was a drink-driver but when they went to arrest him, Longmire pulled out a shotgun, which PC Murphy grabbed as it was pointed at his stomach. The gun went off, missing the PC.

Longmire fired again as the policeman dived for cover and was then trapped in has van door as PC Owen drove the police car at the van as he tried to reload the gun.

He squirmed free and PC Owen drove after him, knocking him over the bonnet, before he was overpowered by the two officers.

PC Owen told the Bolton Evening News: “When we got to hospital we still didn’t have a clue who we had got.”