As the court order preserving the anonymity of killer Mary Bell is extended, the mother of her first victim tells Womens' Editor Christen Pears why she has a right to know her identity.

JUNE Richardson could pass Mary Bell on the street and she wouldn't know her. She could be sitting at the next table in a restaurant and she would be oblivious to the fact, because the woman who murdered her four-year-old son has been granted the right to anonymity by the courts.

It is 34 years since Bell, then aged ten, strangled two toddlers in Newcastle, sending a wave of revulsion up and down the country. On her release from jail in 1980, she was given a new identity and the chance to start a new life, away from media intrusion. But the court order protecting her anonymity was due to be lifted on May 25, her daughter's 18th birthday and, ironically, the anniversary of Martin Brown's death.

"When Mary Bell killed Martin, she didn't just take away my son, she took away my identity, she almost destroyed my life. I was no longer June Brown. I was the mother of Martin Brown who was murdered by Mary Bell," says June.

"She knows who I am, I have a right to know where she is, what she looks like. We know she comes up to the North-East to visit her old haunts. I could be sitting next to her and I wouldn't have a clue. I don't know what I would do if I came face-to-face with her. I'm not a violent person but maybe I'd go for her, I don't know. She shouldn't be allowed to put me in that position."

Lifting the ban on identifying Bell would give June some of the peace of mind she craves, but the killer has been granted an interim order, extending the injunction until a court hearing in September when she will ask for protection for herself and her daughter for life.

June and her family will be at the hearing, although Bell is not expected to attend. "I should be allowed to have my say but, like everything else, it seems she can do what she wants and we have to accept it. The Government never tells us anything. They didn't tell us about the ban not being lifted. They didn't tell us when she escaped from prison, or when she was released. It means I can't prepare my family and that's hard."

June, who is now 57, lives in a first floor flat in Low Fell, Gateshead, under the shadow of the Angel of the North. A ceiling fan hums overhead, dispersing the smoke from the cigarettes she smokes, one after the other. She's passionate, angry, articulate but, no matter how much she must hurt, she's always in control.

Her ordeal began on a summer afternoon in 1968 when she was making tea for her son and daughter at their home in the Scotswood area of Newcastle. The daily routine was disturbed when a frantic neighbour banged on the door, telling her Martin had had an accident. June stepped out into the street and two girls, Mary Bell and her friend Norma Bell, took her to where Martin lay - in the bedroom of a condemned house where they said they had found him asleep. He was dead.

For three months, the police thought Martin had died from natural causes but then Bell struck again, murdering three-year-old Brian Howe. This time, she left her calling card, cutting off the toddler's hair and stuffing it down his throat and carving her initials into the flesh on his legs.

"Mary Bell lived in the next street up from us. I had only seen her a few times but after she murdered Martin, she was around constantly. She asked us if we missed him, how we felt. She knew what grief we were going through and she went out and murdered another little boy. She knew what she was doing.

"If she hadn't murdered Brian, she would have committed the perfect crime. Everyone thought Martin had died from natural causes but after that, the police put two and two together."

The murder of her son had a devastating effect on June. Her first marriage collapsed and she was brought to the verge of a nervous breakdown. But, over time, she began to re-build her life. The grief was still there, welling up at birthdays and Christmases, but she knew she could control it.

Then came the publication in 1998 of Cries Unheard by journalist Gitta Sereny. Bell was reputed to have received £50,000 for her help with the book about her life.

"Until then, we didn't talk about what had happened. I was starting to get things under control but when she brought that book out, all the anger and the hate came back.

"She was given a new life, a new start, and what did she do? She came out of it to make money. At the same time, she raked the past up for us. As far as I'm concerned, she gave up her right to anonymity then."

But although June wants to know who and where Bell is, she does have concerns for Bell's daughter. "It must be horrific for her daughter. She now knows her mother murdered two children. How can she cope with that? What happens when she's old enough to have her own children. Will she ask her mother to babysit for her, knowing what she did? I feel heartily sorry for her."

June believes Bell will be granted anonymity for life in September, not to protect her from her victims' families, but from the media.

'I think because of her daughter, they will extend the anonymity," she says wearily. "But if she does get it, I hope they will put clauses in to protect us as well. She should stay away from the North-East and my family and she should be banned from making any further profit from her past."

In most circumstances, criminals cannot make money from their crimes, but the law does not apply to books and memoirs. June wants the law to be changed but, despite a meeting with then Home Secretary Jack Straw four years ago, it remains unaltered.

"The Government is allowing the perpetrators to profit from what they've done and they're allowing them to put their victims' families through that experience all over again. I don't know how they can be so cruel."

June is now a trained counsellor and a vociferous campaigner for victims' rights and her work often puts her in the public eye. "Because I campaign, people always remember Martin, but they forget there was another little boy murdered by Mary Bell as well. I still see Brian's family from time to time, but his mother's too ill to talk to people. Every time I fight for Martin, I'm fighting for Brian as well."

Martin would have been 38 now and, although she thinks about him every day, June is ready to move on.

"I'm not the same person I was before. I've learned to live a different life. I'm June Richardson, mother of Martin Brown, who will never stop grieving. But I'm also June Richardson, wife, mother and grandmother, and I just want to get on with my life. I can't do that properly unless I know who Mary Bell is."