Family anger concerning the police decision not to contact the witnesses

The family of a young child who disappeared from an Australian beach over 50 years ago criticized the police so as not to officially interview potential eyewitnesses during an examination of the case.

The agents suspect that Cheryl Grimmer, three years old, was kidnapped from Fairy Meadow Beach, which is around 50 miles (80 km) south of Sydney in New South Wales (NSW), when they disappeared on January 12, 1970. The Grimmer family had just emigrated from the United Kingdom.

They were told that the exam, which took four years, did not provide any new evidence which could lead to a conviction.

They are angry that three potential eyewitnesses who spoke to the BBC were not officially interviewed by police officers, although their contact details were transmitted to the police.

Ricki Nash, Cheryl’s brother, said he felt a “total frustration” about how the exam was managed, which he understood “supposed to be a complete and complete exam” of the case.

“There are no words, nothing,” he said about the decision not to formally interview potential eyewitnesses. “Our family cannot go ahead without the help of the police.”

The three potential eyewitnesses manifested themselves after the BBC broadcast the Podcast Fairy Meadow True Crime in 2022, which has since been downloaded five million times.

A man, who asked to keep his private identity, said he saw a teenager taking a small child from the locker room next to the beach the day Cheryl disappeared.

The man said he had a brief conversation on the phone with the NSW police after telling the BBC what he had seen, but no longer heard the strength.

Damian LOONE, a retired detective who worked on the case of Cheryl, said that he thought that man’s testimony was “very credible”.

In 2017, a man in sixties was accused of kidnapping and murder of Cheryl after the police discovered a confession made to the police by a teenager in 1971.

A judge then judged that the confession could not be presented as proof of trial.

The accused – known only by his “Mercury” police code name because he was a minor at the time of the alleged offenses – was released in 2019 and all the accusations, which he denied, was abandoned.

In a new episode of the Podcast Fairy Meadow, the former SGT Loone said that he “simply could not understand” why the police had not officially interviewed the man who had spoken to the BBC, which he would have done if he was still responsible for the investigation into the disappearance of Cheryl.

“I think it’s a sloppy police job,” he added. “That’s what they should have done and I can’t believe it hasn’t happened.”

He said he believed that the man was “the only independent witness” who was in Fairy Meadow Beach who saw a teenager – about 16 or 17 years old – with Cheryl on the day of his disappearance.

“We know that the suspect Mercury was (of) this age group at the time,” he added.

Kay Tutton, another potential eyewitness, contacted the BBC to say that she saw a man away a little girl from the beach the day Cheryl disappeared.

“I just remember this charming little girl and she was very upset. And this man had her hand closely and said” go “. She obviously didn’t want to go.”

Kay went to the police station shortly after seeing a report on the disappearance of Cheryl in 1970, but the police did not tell her again after saying what she had seen.

The BBC provided them with updated contact details after Kay, now 82, sent us an email on the Podcast – but it did not hear about officers.

Another woman, who also asked to keep her private identity, told us that she had been approached by a man on a beach near Fairy Meadow a few days before Cheryl disappeared. She said she was not contacted by the NSW police either.

“I have this information that I could give them and they are not interested, you know? I’m just disappointed,” she told us. “It could lead to something.”

Cheryl’s brother Ricki, now 62, was seven years old when she disappeared. The pair was together in the locker room next to Fairy Meadow Beach, but after refusing for a few seconds, she left.

He wrote an open letter highlighting what he believes to be mistakes in the police investigation dating from the day she disappeared.

A petition asking the State Parliament to conduct an investigation into the surveys of missing people supervised by the NSW police, like Cheryl, attracted more than 10,000 signatures this summer.

He was debated in the Parliament, but in a letter responding to the petitioners, the Minister of Police and the state counter-terrorism did not commit to taking an investigation.

NSW police said all of the information she had received, including the potential BBC eye witnesses, had been properly evaluated. They said that this was not the case that all those who contacted them would be questioned.

“Each submission is evaluated on its merits, and decisions concerning subsequent measures are made in accordance with survey standards and the relevance of information with established facts.”

They added that they had met Cheryl family members last September for a three -hour discussion on the police exam in which “all the known and verified facts were clearly described”.

In 2020, 50 years after the disappearance of Cheryl, New South Wales police offered a reward of a million Australian dollars (£ 529,000) to anyone who had information that led to a successful conviction.

Ricki said to us: “You offer a million dollars award, people are manifested, you don’t talk to them. Why offer the award?

“Was it just to appease our family, soothe the public, just to make you look good – it looks like you are doing something? In fact, you do nothing.”