Family 'devastated' as missing girl case stays closed
A man's confession to abducting UK toddler Cheryl Grimmer in Australia was previously thrown out.
**Family ‘devastated’ as missing girl case stays closed**
Bristol toddler Cheryl Grimmer disappeared from an Australian beach in January 1970.
The family of a British girl who vanished in Australia more than 55 years ago say they are “devastated and angry” after the decision not to reopen the case.
Cheryl Grimmer, a toddler from Bristol, went missing in 1970 on a beach near Sydney shortly after her family had moved there.
A man in his sixties was charged in 2017 with her abduction and murder, but the trial fell apart after his teenage confession was ruled inadmissible.
Now Sally Dowling, the director of public prosecutions (DPP) in New South Wales, has decided that ruling still stands, despite years of campaigning by Cheryl’s family for the case to be looked at again.
After the three-year-old disappeared from Fairy Meadow beach in Wollongong in January 1970, large-scale searches uncovered no clues.
Cheryl vanished from the beach changing rooms when her brother, who had been looking after her, turned away for a few seconds.
The BBC’s 2022 Fairy Meadow podcast explored Cheryl’s disappearance, and since it aired at least one new witness has come forward.
The suspect, who could not be named for legal reasons and was known only as “Mercury”, never went on trial after a judge ruled in 2019 that his confession could not be used as evidence. He denies any wrongdoing, and prosecutors later dropped the case.
Dowling agreed to review the decision at the request of Cheryl’s family.
But the DPP had already sent the family a letter saying the judge’s ruling was correct.
“I have reviewed this case afresh to determine if the decision not to proceed further was correct,” she wrote.
“As you appreciate, this question turns on whether the exclusion of the recorded interview with Mercury by the trial judge is reasonably open to challenge.
“After careful consideration I have concluded that it is not, and that therefore the original decision to take no further proceedings following that ruling was correct,” she said.
Dowling said the outcome was likely to be “very disappointing” and said she would meet the family.
The Grimmer family say they submitted hundreds of pages of legal arguments and are furious to receive such a short reply.
They have now written back to the DPP, demanding a more detailed response to the arguments they put forward.
Cheryl’s eldest brother Ricki Nash said Dowling’s decision and the brief explanation for it was “incredibly difficult to accept”.
“Cheryl was three years old. She never got the opportunity to grow up, have a career, fall in love, have children or live the life that was taken from her,” he said.
“Our family has spent more than half a century living with that loss.”
Nash added: “We have continued fighting because we believe Cheryl deserves to have the circumstances surrounding her disappearance and death properly examined.
“Our family is devastated and angry, but we are not going to stop asking questions - we owe that to Cheryl.”