In a few months Darren Vickers - who committed one of the most chilling child murders Greater Manchester has seen - will be considered for release from his life sentence, the M.E.N. can reveal.
Now 56, the monster has already served his minimum 25 year period behind bars and he could be released as early as February.
He is behind bars for the May 1997 abduction and murder of eight-year-old Jamie Lavis, a schoolboy from Openshaw who he groomed and snatched after he boarded the bus he was driving.
A quarter of a century on, it remains one of the darkest days in Manchester's criminal history, the awful crime compounded by what happened afterwards.
Little Jamie's parents hoped for the best but feared the worst when he went missing on a bank holiday Monday. His body would only be discovered two years later.
In the days after Jamie vanished, murderer Darren Vickers wormed his way into his parents' lives, playing the part of an innocent bus driver haunted by the knowledge that he was the last person to see the child before he went missing.
Vickers fronted media appeals for the shattered family, going on TV to speak for them, urging the public to help find 'missing' Jamie, and taking part in searches which he knew were going nowhere.
Incredibly, brazen Vickers even moved in with Mr and Mrs Lavis and slept in their bed, with couple offering to move onto the settee to accommodate him.
It meant that the man who had tricked Jamie into staying on his bus all day, before sexually assaulting him and murdering him, could revel in the secret of his crime for months - while staying updated on the police investigation.
The Manchester Evening News has learned that the Parole Board will spend a day assessing the killer's case early next year. They told us hundreds of pages of evidence and statements would be considered.
Detectives at the time believed Vickers, had he not been brought to justice, would have killed again. Former cop Asif Hussain, 60, who spent weeks embedded with the Lavis family in his role as family liaison officer, has now told the M.E.N he never trusted Vickers - and believes he should never be freed.
"Vickers will be a danger to children for the rest of his life," he said. "He was a married man with two children of his own and yet he was able to take the life of another child. He can never be rehabilitated in my opinion."
Asif left GMP in 2014 after 25 years in the force - and says the murder was the worst crime of his career. He recalls how the team of detectives donated overtime money to pay for Jamie's distressed family. He still treasures thank you notes that members of the Lavis family wrote to him for his care.
"Darren Vickers was a very manipulative person," Asif said. "I thought that the first time I met him. I knew he was a wrong 'un straight away. I went to the detective in charge and told him Vickers had done it. At the time I had two young children of my own.
"It was a very stressful time. I had to deal with the family and at the same time deal with Vickers, who had moved in. It was awful. I pretended to be his friend. I could not be nasty to him otherwise the family would have told me to leave. I couldn't leave. I had to keep an eye on what was going on."
Jamie's mother, Karen, told the M.E.N. at the time Vickers was caged: "I was destroyed when Jamie went missing and when I found out he was dead. For five months I lived through pure hell wondering what had happened to him. My life was in limbo and I was helpless."
Detectives would come to realise Vickers' increasingly persistent involvement in the family was 'bordering on the obsessive'. His involvement was so great the married father lost his job and neglected his own family, a trial at Manchester Crown Court heard.
By the time he was arrested for Jamie's abduction in October 1997, Vickers had made repeated appeals for help in tracing the youngster. "We've been out 24 hours a day looking for Jamie," brazen Vickers said in one appeal.
In 1999, after Jamie's remains had been found in undergrowth at Reddish Vale, Vickers was jailed for life for murder and ordered to serve 25 years behind bars.
Sentencing Vickers to life, Mr Justice Forbes said: "These are truly wicked crimes. Jamie's final epitaph came from the lips of his grandmother, Barbara Lavis, who said 'he was streetwise but he was a lovely little boy'."
He added: "Jamie's brief life was cruelly and prematurely brought to an end because he had the tragic misfortune of boarding your bus at around 10.30am on Ashton Old Road on May 5 1997.
"Thereafter you carefully groomed this little boy so he stayed on your bus for the rest of the day. You did this for your own base motives and intended to, and did, sexually abuse this little boy and then killed him and abandoned his body in Reddish Vale. You unclothed his body and left it naked on the ground."
A 2018 TV documentary, Faking It: Tears Of A Crime, analysed how the manipulative killer tried to get away with his sickening crime. Experts told the program Vickers attempted to supplant Jamie by worming his way into the heart of the family so he could keep tabs on the police investigation.
The programme featured the chilling image of Jamie's parents, with the man they didn't know had murdered their son, sitting between them bare-chested.
Forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes described the picture of Vickers with his arms around Mr and Mrs Lavis as the 'most bizarre image I think I've ever seen'. She said: "Where Jamie should be, right in the middle of the picture, is Darren Vickers and he's spread-eagled.
"He's got a very dominant body posture and he's got two arms wrapped possessively around Jamie's parents, who look shell-shocked, traumatised and just bewildered by the position they find themselves in."
Body language expert Cliff Lansley added: "Here we have a viper in the nest. The perpetrator has implanted himself in the family and had the nerve to have his picture taken with them, without a top as well. How bizarre is this?"
The statements and interviews Vickers, of Gorton, made during the search for Jamie were analysed in the documentary to show how he gave himself away.
Mr Lansley told the documentary Vickers unconsciously revealed he was lying by repeatedly shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders when speaking to TV crews.
"The head shake is tiny but its a gift to a body language analyst because those tiny gestures are below consciousness and they leak the contradiction to the statement he is making," the analyst said.
Language experts also analysed his statements and said Vicker's refusal to name Jamie - often referring to him as the child - was an attempt to distance himself from the horrific crime.
Roy Rainford, who was the senior investigating officer on the inquiry, told the programme: "Darren Vickers should never be released. He will be a danger to children."
Because of time Vickers spent on remand (he was charged with abduction in October 1997), Vickers' minimum tariff expired last month. The Parole Board will consider his case in February.
A spokesman for the Parole Board said: "An oral hearing has been listed for the parole review of Darren Vickers and is scheduled to take place in February 2023.
"Parole Board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community.
"A panel will carefully examine a huge range of evidence, including details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims.
"Members read and digest hundreds of pages of evidence and reports in the lead up to an oral hearing. Evidence from witnesses including probation officers, psychiatrists and psychologists, officials supervising the offender in prison as well as victim personal statements are then given at the hearing.
"The prisoner and witnesses are then questioned at length during the hearing which often lasts a full day or more. Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority."
In 2005 Vickers tried to appeal against his conviction - the second time he had done so. Speaking at the time his mother Wendy told the M.E.N: "It's been so hard while Darren's been in jail. I feel like I'm in prison too. I'm doing everything in my power to fight his conviction."
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