ROBERT Black, one of the UK's most notorious serial killers, was born near Falkirk in 1947 to a single mother and factory worker who put him up to be fostered when he was still a few weeks old.

The couple who took him in - the Tulips - were in their 50s and lived in Kinlochleven in the West Highlands. Within 11 years both had died, and Black returned to a children's home in Falkirk.

He claimed his desire to self-abuse and his fascination with young girls developed early.

Aged 12, he was accused of trying to rape a young girl and was moved to an all-boys' home in Musselburgh, where he later claimed to have been sexually abused.

In 1962, he moved to Greenock where he would be accused, a year later, of molesting a seven-year-old girl in an abandoned air raid shelter after luring her from a swing park with the promise of showing her a box of kittens. Instead he strangled her, almost fatally.

However, he escaped with only a caution for lewd and libidinous behaviour.

In 1966, now working as a builder back in Kinlochleven, he was reported for abusing the nine-year-old daughter of a couple he was lodging with, and was subsequently sent to borstal.

On his release, Black moved to London where he became a pool attendant and immersed himself in child pornography.

Swimsuits were one of the paedophile's particular fetishes and, at home, he would squeeze himself into young girls' costumes and act out sordid sex acts.

In 1976, he obtained his driving licence and embarked on an ill-fated career as a delivery driver.

The job enabled him to roam the country anonymously, turning the back of his van into a murderous lair where he would abuse himself and his victims with a vile stash of crudely-fashioned instruments.