“This man, who was incredibly evil, we had to forgive him. We didn’t condone him but we had to forgive him.”
Andrew Cardy has had four decades to reflect on life without his daughter Jennifer and his feelings about her killer.
The schoolgirl was just nine when she was abducted on the way to a friend's house near her home in Ballinderry, Co Antrim, on August 12 1981.
Her body was found nearly a week later at a dam near Hillsborough, Co Down.
For years, her killer remained at large until, in July 1990, a retired postmaster in Stow in Scotland saw his six-year-old neighbour being abducted. Police later stopped a van and found the young girl bound and gagged in the back.
The driver - Robert Black, a delivery man originally from Grangemouth in Scotland - was convicted in 1994 of murdering three young girls: 11-year-old Susan Maxwell in Northumberland in 1982; five-year-old Caroline Hogg in Edinburgh in 1983 and 10-year-old Sarah Harper in Leeds in 1986. He is also suspected of murdering 13-year-old Devon schoolgirl Genette Tate in 1978.
However, he was not convicted of Jennifer's killing until 2011, following one of the longest police investigations ever conducted in Northern Ireland.
Five years on from 68-year-old Black’s death in Maghaberry jail in Co Antrim, Jennifer’s mother Patricia has written a book, There Came a Day: A Child’s Murder, A Mother’s Survival, about her family’s story.
The book details the desperate search for Jennifer, the discovery of the prized red bicycle she had got just two weeks earlier, and the discovery of her body.
A devout Christian, Mrs Cardy said she felt compelled to write the book around seven years ago.
“There was one night as I was just going to sleep,” she said.
“I was thinking of all the ways the Lord has helped me in those dark times. I had these words, they are scriptural: ‘What I tell you in the darkness; speak in the light’.”
She added: “Being a Christian, it is to share the reality of God in those dark times”.
Mrs Cardy (73) continued to write the book, despite suffering from severe ill health.
A diabetic since her twenties, she has suffered rheumatoid arthritis and has undergone several operations, including one to straighten her spine.
In 2019, her foot became gangrenous and her leg had to be amputated below the knee.
While she was recovering from the amputation, she suffered a stroke which affected the left side of her body.
“I’m still trying to undertake a life without movement, which is quite hard,” she said.
Mrs Cardy said she wanted the book to show “what is in my heart”.
“It wasn’t an easy thing to do but I did it to encourage other people who are facing dark times in their life,” she said.
“I set my heart to be seen and to engage with every reader.”
She said Jennifer is often in her thoughts.
“There is not a day that goes past, even yet, without memories of her,” she said.
“She was a clear-headed girl, just full of fun.”
Mrs Cardy and her husband Andrew are members of Hope Elim Church in Hillsborough, Co Antrim.
Mr Cardy (72), who ran Cardy Kitchens in Lisburn, said his family prayed for Black before his death in 2016.
"That’s not an easy thing to come to terms with,” he said.
“This man, who was incredibly evil, we had to forgive him. We didn’t condone him but we had to forgive him.”
However, he said the process of forgiveness has been difficult.
“When we first lost Jennifer if I had got hold of the man who murdered her I would have murdered him,” he said.
“I would have slit his throat without even thinking. So I had to learn to change.”
The Cardys are also parents to sons Mark and Philip and daughter Victoria.
Mr Cardy said his family were determined that Jennifer’s death would not destroy them.
“We all have a past and we all reflect on the past but we have to live life,” he said.
“I always say he took our daughter’s life he wasn’t going to take our lives as well.”
He added: “There’s always that sadness…But with the Lord’s help we were able to move on, knowing that Jennifer wouldn’t be coming back.”
In the darkest times after his daughter’s death, Mr Cardy said he and his wife had to summon all their courage.
“If my family had seen me broken they would also have been broken…as long as I stayed strong and Pat stayed strong they stayed strong,” he said.
“We never whinged about it, we never complained about it, we did our best to live life, but with the sadness of course.”
The Cardys never lost hope that Jennifer's killer would be found.
“We always knew that someone would be caught," Mr Cardy said.
"And then in the early nineties we knew that Robert Black had murdered Jennifer.
“We were waiting through from the nineties before it actually came to court in 2011."
Mr Cardy said he was hugely proud of his wife’s book, although he admitted he has found it too difficult to read.
“I am so pleased and proud of Pat for being able to write this,” he said.
He added: “I haven’t been able to read it at all. It’s too hard for me to read but I will.”
- There Came a Day will be published on Monday, July 19. The book will be available from local bookshops and online at https://www.10ofthose.com/uk/products/27881/there-came-a-day
