Cheryl Grimmer was allegedly abducted on January 12, 1970 outside a shower block at Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong, south of Sydney.
Cheryl Grimmer was allegedly abducted on January 12, 1970 outside a shower block at Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong, south of Sydney.
NSW’s top prosecutor has agreed to investigate why the case against a teenager previously charged over the abduction of toddler Cheryl Grimmer 56 years ago was dropped.
The 3-year-old was abducted on January 12, 1970, outside a shower block at Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong, south of Sydney.
The casehas been the subject of multiple police investigations in the decades since, and a coronial inquest in 2011 found Cheryl was likely deceased.
In 2017, a man – known by the pseudonym Mercury – pleaded not guilty after he was charged with Cheryl’s murder.
Prosecutors later dropped the case against the man – who was a teenager when Cheryl vanished – after the NSW Supreme Court ruled his confession was inadmissible.
The teen did not have a parent, adult, or lawyer present when he was interviewed in 1971.
The Director of Public Prosecutions declined to appeal the 2019 decision.
In a February 16 letter to Cheryl’s family, NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling SC agreed to conduct a review into the initial decision to discontinue proceedings.
The disapperancae of three-year-old Cheryl Grimmer shocked the nation.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) confirmed the review would be conducted under the ODPP Victim Right of Review policy, which empowers victims to seek a review in circumstances where prosecutors either do not launch or discontinue proceedings.
As the ODPP has no investigative function, a review under the policy can only occur on evidence available at the time of the original decision.
It was under those circumstances that Dowling raised whether the Grimmer family wished to submit any fresh information to NSW Police prior to the review.
The ODPP said it would be a matter for the police as to whether they conducted any further investigation.
Cheryl’s brother Rick Nash, who has been fighting for justice since the day his sister died, told news.com.au this was the best news in years.
He said it was also important to note that Mercury was interviewed in the place where he resided – “a boy’s shelter in Sydney surrounded by his carers”.
“If all relevant departments and agencies commit to working together with full transparency and accountability, the truth about Mercury, the individual who confessed to abducting and murdering our sister Cheryl, can finally be properly examined,” Nash said.
Missing toddler Cheryl Grimmer and her brother Rick.
“For decades, our family has sought honesty, co-operation, and a thorough, unified approach to this case. When agencies operate in silos or withhold critical information, justice is delayed and confidence in the system is undermined. Transparency is not optional in matters of this magnitude, it is essential.”
Nash said the evidence and confession need to be assessed openly, collaboratively, and without institutional barriers.
“Had the system functioned as it should have in 1971, this person may have been imprisoned long ago.
“We are not asking for anything extraordinary, only that agencies work together in good faith, and that justice be pursued with integrity. When transparency leads the process, evil can no longer hide behind process failures or bureaucratic division.”
NSW MLC Jeremy Buckingham used parliamentary privilege to name Mercury last year.
He recounted for the record passages of an April 29, 1971, interview between Mercury and a police sergeant during which he allegedly admitted to having “come around from the back of the shower block and grabbed the little girl”, according to Buckingham’s speech.
Newscorp has chosen not to name the man and he was not legally identifiable during the 2018 court trial because of being underage at the time of Cheryl’s disappearance.
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