Families of missing British toddlers press Australian cold-case inquiry
Cheryl Grimmer vanished from Fairy Meadow Beach in 1970, and her brother says the new NSW inquiry could finally expose the police failures that froze the case for 56 years.
The first public hearing of the NSW parliamentary inquiry into unsolved murders and long-term missing persons cases brought Cheryl Grimmer’s family back to the place where the three-year-old disappeared from Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong on January 12, 1970. At Bowral on June 11, 2026, relatives said the real hope is that the probe will uncover missed evidence, overlooked suspects and investigative failures that left the case stalled for more than five decades.
Cheryl was born in Bristol and moved to Australia with her family in 1968. She vanished while at the beach with her mother and three brothers, and her body has never been found. The inquiry is examining cases from 1965 to 2010, with the next session due to continue in Grafton in July, putting one of Australia’s most haunting child disappearances back into the public record.
Ricki Nash, Cheryl’s brother, told the hearing the family had lived with the consequences of police failure for more than 50 years. He pointed to the handling of a teenage confession linked to a suspect publicly known as Mercury, a 17-year-old who made a graphic account of Cheryl’s murder. Mercury was charged in 2017, but the case collapsed after the confession was ruled inadmissible under child interview protection laws.
Nash also challenged the decision to release details of a ransom note demanding A$10,000 before the deadline, saying the family should never have been dragged into a public spectacle. The hearing also heard from Kevin Docherty, twin brother of Kay Docherty, who disappeared in 1979 at age 15 near Wollongong. Kevin Docherty said his parents died without answers.
The inquiry is also considering whether some disappearances may be linked to Ivan Milat, who was convicted of murdering at least seven backpackers between 1989 and 1992 in Belanglo State Forest, including three Germans, two Britons and two Australians. NSW authorities had already lifted the reward in Cheryl Grimmer’s case to A$1 million on the 50th anniversary of her disappearance, and a woman who came forward in 2008 believing she might be Cheryl was ruled out by DNA. After 56 years, the Bowral hearing has put the question back where the family has always wanted it: what was missed, and who still has to answer for it?
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