A RETIRED librarian would have stood trial for the 1970 murder of a young Liverpool mother, had he still been alive, the Crown Prosecution Service said last night.

The CPS took the unusual step of declaring that the suspect would have faced the charge after new evidence came to light.

Loner Harvey Richardson died in a Wigan hospice from bowel cancer, aged 77, in February last year.

His death led to the re-opening of the murder case of Lorraine Jacob, a 19-year-old mother-of-two whose battered and strangled body was found in a Liverpool city centre alleyway on September 2, 1970.

A suitcase in Richardson’s home, in Aspull, near Wigan, contained a handwritten confession, spanning nine pages of yellowing A5 paper, and Miss Jacob’s blue knickers, which had been taken from her body.

DNA tests on those knickers linked the victim and killer, and experts said they were certain Richardson was the author of the note, hidden away in an envelope marked “private and confidential”.

He had never come under suspicion during the initial investigation, and is not believed to have ever told anyone his secret.

Miss Jacob was last seen walking alone along Pilgrim Street, towards Hardman Street, at about 11pm on Tuesday, September 1, 1970.

She had been out with friends and is thought to have been making her way home after stopping at a chip shop.