For 40 years the parents of a Royal Navy sailor have suspected they know their son’s killer.
Simon Parkes was just 18 when he vanished in Gibraltar without a trace during the final leg of a worldwide deployment on HMS Illustrious in 1986.
His body has never been found and, desperate for closure, his parents Margaret and David are convinced he was murdered by serial killer Allan Grimson, a former petty officer who was serving aboard the ship at the same time.
Grimson made a bid for freedom last year, but the parole board turned it down.
The hearing came after Grimson became eligible for parole having served the minimum term attached to the life sentence he received for murdering sailor Nicholas Wright, 18, and barman Sion Jenkins, 20, in 2001.
Court hearings in the latest case heard he had previously been transferred to a lower-security Category C prison with the prospect of eventually moving to an open prison as his parole application was considered.
Fearing he could one day be released, Simon’s ageing mum, now 80 and living in Bristol, has now learned that Grimson has been convicted of multiple sexual offences, bringing her a sense of justice.
Grimson, 66, was found guilty at Winchester Crown Court of 13 sex offences between 1994 and 1999 against three men and a child and will be sentenced on November 9.
Margaret said: ‘He should stay behind bars which is where he belongs.
‘I think justice has been done after all this time for those victims. It was a shame it has not been done before but now it has all come out hopefully it means he will stay in prison.’
His conviction has now opened the path for an inquest into Simon’s death, offering the prospect of answers his family has sought for nearly four decades.
Hampshire Police spent years investigating Simon’s disappearance and deployed specialist teams to Gibraltar in 2019 before carrying out further searches in 2023 and 2024.
The service announced last year that it was closing its criminal investigation after exhaustive inquiries failed to establish what had happened.
‘We now just want it to be recognised formally that Simon was unlawfully killed,’ she said. ‘You have got to remember that as far as the Navy is concerned he has gone AWOL.’
Margaret and David have always disputed that he had gone AWOL. They still have his letters and they point to a young recruit at the start of his career enjoying the ‘trip of a lifetime’.
In one of his letters he made arrangements for his family to meet him in Portsmouth.
‘There was absolutely no reason he wouldn’t want to come back’, Margaret said. ‘He had a girlfriend in Exmouth he used to have to send voice cassettes back to and was speaking about coming to see her at Christmas.
‘You feel guilty thinking anything other than he may still be alive. It swayed one way to another in the early years but when Grimson became involved that was the turning point.
‘His letters remain probably our most treasured possessions – but we wish we’d kept more of his stuff.
‘But we will never give up the fight for true justice. There is nothing we can do at the moment. It has all been done now. We just have to wait for the inquest.’
She hopes that the inquest will prompt someone to come forward with more information and so that they will finally get a death certificate. They are ‘100 per cent certain’ that Grimson was involved.
Margaret said: ‘The recent case was nothing directly to do with Simon. But we just managed to follow it and are pleased justice has been done. I won’t believe he will be coming out of prison any time soon.’
Grimson, dubbed ‘Frankenstein’, was branded a ‘serial killer in nature if not by number’ by a judge when he was jailed for life in 2001. During police interviews he chillingly described killing as ‘better than sex’ and ‘better than an orgasm’.
He has continued to deny any involvement in the disappearance of Simon, but his family are sure he was responsible.
Margaret added: ‘Our life sentence goes on. All I can say is Grimson will be a danger to society if he comes out – a leopard never changes his spots as they say – that is it really.’
A serial killer by nature if not by number
Former Royal Navy petty officer Allan Grimson was branded a ‘serial killer in nature if not by number’ when he was jailed for life more than 25 years ago, having told police that killing ‘was better than sex, better than an orgasm’.
The non-commissioned officer had pleaded guilty to killing naval rating Nicholas Wright, 18, from Leicester, between December 11 1997 and December 17 1999 and barman Sion Jenkins, 20, from Newbury, Berkshire, between November 1 1998 and December 18 1999.
Sentencing him at Winchester Crown Court in March 2001, the same court where he has now been tried for sexual offences dating back to 1994, Judge Peter Cresswell told him: ‘You are a serial killer in nature if not by number. You are a highly dangerous serial killer who killed two young men in horrifying and appalling circumstances.’
The bodies of the two victims were discovered four miles apart at the side of country lanes north of Winchester, Hampshire, in December 1999.
Mr Wright was found in a field next to the A272 at Cheriton and Mr Jenkins near to the A32 at West Tisted.
The court heard how Grimson told police he ‘punched the air with triumph and gave out a roar’ after bludgeoning Mr Wright to death with a baseball bat.
He told officers: ‘It was such a feeling. I have never had that feeling. It was a feeling of power, a good feeling. I felt good about it. It was better than sex that feeling better than an orgasm.’
Grimson went on: ‘It was a feeling I was extremely happy with. That feeling – doing it I have never felt before.’
Anthony Donne QC, prosecuting, said Grimson explained he had the feeling until he put Mr Wright’s dead body in the bath of his rented flat and he slit his throat to make sure he was ‘finished off’.
Mr Donne had told the court that Grimson, from North Shields, had met the young recruit Mr Wright on a fire-training course in Portsmouth in November 1997 – the same way that he met three of the complainants in the recent trial.
He said that Grimson had explained that the killing had not been sexual, but one of control and power – and he told officers that he had thought of cutting off the teenager’s testicles out of curiosity, but had not done it.
The prosecutor said that Grimson had described the killing as being followed by a second sensation of achievement, and he told police he felt he needed an audience and he wanted to show them he had done it.
Mr Donne then went on to describe the last moments of barman Mr Jenkins, who was killed on the same day a year later in 1998.
Officers had asked Grimson if he had killed again and to their horror he said yes.
Mr Donne said Mr Jenkins, 20, had become estranged from his family and ended up working as a barman after a brief spell of five weeks in the Royal Navy.
Grimson had threatened Mr Jenkins with violence after he said no to sex with him, and the pair went on to have sex before he killed Mr Jenkins when he wanted to leave the following day.
Grimson told police that the repeat of the ‘Nicholas Wright experience’ was an ‘anti-climax’, and said: ‘I had no feeling. It was none of this feeling I had with Nicholas Wright. I didn’t know why. Probably because Nicholas Wright put up a bit of a fight. Jenkins was submissive. There was just nothing there. I didn’t know how I felt.’
Grimson also admitted he had wanted to kill again, and told officers: ‘If I was not here (in custody), it would probably happen again.’