“We trusted him and he was evil”
Neal Keeling Chief reporter
22:46, 10 Apr 2026
Mollie Louise Norman, who was murdered at just nine-months old
A former solider, Trevor Stoker was supposed to be babysitting his niece. Instead, he subjected the defenceless nine-month-old to a series of vile assaults.
His sole motivation for attacking Mollie Norman at his home in Little Hulton, Salford, was his hatred of her father.
The brutality of the then-38-year-old would end Mollies life. Then his lies began.
His behaviour after her death then amplified the agony for her heartbroken parents. He lied about what had happened to her, then confessed, then changed his original plea of guilty to manslaughter to not guilty and not guilty to murder forcing her family to endure the stress and torment of a trial.
Stoker, a former soldier, was jailed for life, with a minimum term of 17 years. Last month, The Manchester Evening News revealed he has twice been denied parole.
His trial, in 2006, would leave jury members at Manchester Crown Court in tears. But the death of nine-month-old Mollie would ultimately change the way police investigate child homicides.
The case was a landmark for UK policing. Detectives, forensic officers, and medical experts pushed the boundaries of investigation to prove that Stoker had killed Mollie. Their work showed Stoker’s explanation that he fell downstairs with Mollie accidentally was a lie.
The brutal truth was that Stoke had punched Mollie in the face and body through a pillow, and then lifted her by her ankles into the air and swung her down against a bed.
The brain injuries she suffered made medical history due to their severity on a baby so young.
Stoker later told police when he was punching the child he was “trying to take the hate out on Mollie”. After the verdict, Mollie’s parents, Rachel Webb and Carl Norman, said: “We trusted him and he was evil.”
Mollie died in Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool on June 16, 2005, four days after Stoker attacked her. That day, he confessed to killing Mollie during a dramatic phone call to police.
But at first he claimed the fatal injuries Mollie suffered were due to a fall down stairs. He also pretended to use his life saving skills picked up in the armed forces to reassure Mollie’s family she would be okay.
Stoker was arrested at a service station on the M5 as he made his way to Bristol with the intention of jumping from a bridge. He later confessed to killing Mollie in a police interview and in a letter to a detective.
But he then said the confessions were false as he wanted to take the blame as he was concerned Mollie’s family might attack his wife.
The officer in charge of the investigation was Detective Chief Inspector, Geoff Wessell, based in Salford, who went on to become an Assistant Chief Constable with Avon and Somerset Police force before retiring.
Recalling the case Mr Wessell said: “It’s really sort of strange, in that it’s now 20-odd years ago, but as soon as you spoke to me about this case, it immediately started replaying in my head, like a videotape, because it was so significant, not only for me, but also for my staff.
“What Stoker did to Mollie will live in my memory for a long time. For years. And as a senior investigating officer, it’s one of the most significant cases I’ve dealt with. It was a great team effort to get the conviction with how Stoker messed around after his despicable act.
“But also, it was just, I can remember the impact on Carl and Rachel and the wider family, which will live with me for a long time.
“During the course of a career, you deal with horrendous cases. When you start dealing with a young baby, a defenceless baby, perfectly innocent, and someone does that it really hits home.
“And a lot of my team at the time had young children themselves around that age, so they were dealing with it from a really personal perspective. Dealing with that professionally and working its way through, it leaves a lasting mark.”
He added: “What we did with that case, and the medical science that we brought forward with it really changed not only how Greater Manchester Police investigated child homicide, but how nationally we investigated child homicide. So for all of us, it was a really personal, very important case.”
To his wife and two children, Stoker was a hard-working HGV driver and a caring father. A non-smoker and almost teetotal, he would get up at 5.30am to workout with weights or go for a run, a legacy of his military training.
But at Stoker’s trial it was revealed that 18 years earlier, when he was a 20-year-old Army private, he had assaulted a 10-month-old boy who was the child of his then girlfriend, Susan Rackley, in London.
He was left alone with Aaron at Susan’s London flat after she went to work. During his murder trial Stoker told the court what he did on that occasion: “While I was changing his bottom he kept crawling away. I ended up losing my temper. I felt bad, guilty at what I had done.”
He admitted giving Aaron a couple of slaps and leaving him with a mark on his head where he had kept pulling him back along the carpet. Later that day he went out for a drink with friends, telling them Aaron had been “a little b*****” and he had “nearly killed him”.
Asked if he thought Stoker was too dangerous to be released from prison Mr Wessell said: “Obviously, it’s very difficult for me to sort of interpret what the parole board have a very difficult job to consider. I can remember sitting in that courtroom, sitting next to Carl, [Mollie’s father] when Stoker was sentenced.
“Having heard what he’d done, what he had done previously, and Carl’s reaction, you know, I literally had to pin him to the ground, to the chair, to stop him getting up and doing something himself, and that was with the initial sentence.
“You look back now and add the years on of where Mollie should be in terms of her life, now in early 20s – enjoying all the things that a 20 year old should do, that’s been taken away from her.
“We’re guided by society in terms of whether he’s dangerous he he’s obviously clearly got temper, he’s clearly got some issues. Whether he’s a changed person I don’t know my thoughts always come back to Mollie and comes back to Carl and Rachel and what they’ve lost.”
But he believes Mollie’s death left a vital legacy of learning for police officers.
“If there could have been anything that came out of Molly’s death in a good way, it was what we learned. And then we used it to teach officers and senior investigating officers going forward.
“Twenty years ago, the science around child homicide and serious brain injury, which is what Molly suffered, was new was in his infancy and we had to push the boundaries with that and we got absolutely the right conviction. But then Molly’s legacy lived on in that I was still lecturing senior investigating officers like myself for a good ten years later on the techniques that we used and the approaches we used.
“So Mollie’s case really did inform us… with the development of child homicide investigations in babies. That really is a legacy for Mollie. It can’t bring her back and it can’t do anything for Rachel and for Carl, but it was a really significant case nationally and continues to be.”
When Stoker spoke to a police officer as he drove south, seemingly with the intention of leaping from a Bristol bridge, he referred to himself in the third person, saying “Trevor” was a kind and devoted father-of-two, but a “demon” inside his mind was responsible for his appalling crime.
When confessing Stoker said that during the evening before the attack he squeezed Mollie tightly, causing her distress. This was to get anger out of his system. He also spoke of his hatred towards Mollie’s father, Carl Norman, describing him as a ‘dead leg’.
Stoker told police he had no intention of killing Mollie but wanted to have “little bursts of anger”. Stoker said the reason for his behaviour towards Mollie was that he was angry and annoyed that while he worked hard to make a nice home, others like Mollie’s father, were happy to sit at home living a “sub-standard life”.
Looking back to the investigation that followed, Mr Wessell added: “At the time of Mollie’s death there was a lot of controversy over infant homicides following a number of high profile failed prosecutions surrounding the whole issue of ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome’. The National Police Chiefs’ Council had set up a Child Death Homicide Working Group sitting under the NPCC Homicide Working Group.
“As a result of Mollie’s case I was invited onto the group and eventually became the chair for many years.
“Why Mollie was so significant nationally is because the whole idea of ’Shaking’ leading to death was [at the time] unproven science and hotly disputed. What we got with Mollie was an offender openly and unprompted describing in detail the method of infliction and this matched the theoretical science exactly as to causation.
“This was why it was so important we got the infamous telephone call and the subsequent video interview into the public record of the case as it could then be referred to elsewhere.
“So, whilst I give no credit to Stoker, her death actually lead to theories that had previously been dismissed by good barristers being much more difficult to disprove, as the science improved as well.”
Looking at an increase in the number of successful child homicide investigations, Mr Wessell puts it down to an improvement in scientific techniques following Mollie’s death – along with a ’Tripartite’ approach employed by GMP at a early stage.
This covers “police, pathology, and legal”, and was, he says, unheard of at the time for a murder case. – and was more akin to the approach taken in Child Protection
“However, it was subsequently adopted as best practice,” added Mr Wessell.
As a direct consequence of the work of the Child Death group a nationally accredited Course for Investigation of Child Homicide was created. Every Force in the UK sent SIOs on this course and it continues today.
He continued: “Mollie was for many years the main case study of the course. I personally presented it many times on the course as a guest speaker.”
When Stoker was sentenced in 2006, Judge Mr Justice Irwin told him: “You are weak and wicked and took out your wickedness on Mollie.”
He added: “This was a despicable and callous crime. To attack and kill a defenceless baby in your care is an act beyond comprehension. Your explanation is that you attacked her as a way of working off your contempt for her father – that explanation, too, is beyond comprehension.”
