{"id":466891,"date":"2025-10-01T22:36:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T22:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/466891\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T22:36:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T22:36:20","slug":"cheryl-grimmer-familys-anger-that-police-do-nothing-as-witnesses-come-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/466891\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheryl Grimmer: Family’s anger that police ‘do nothing’ as witnesses come forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cheryl was abducted from a beach in Australia after emigrating from Bristol\"CherylCheryl Grimmer(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

The family of a missing girl from Bristol who vanished from an Australian beach over 50 years ago have criticised police for failing to formally interview potential witnesses during a review of the case.<\/p>\n

The BBC<\/a> reports that three potential eyewitnesses came forward following the launch of the Fairy Meadow true crime podcast.<\/p>\n

One man, who did not want to be identified, said he had seen a teenage boy carry a small child from the changing rooms next to the beach on the day that Cheryl disappeared, reports the BBC.<\/p>\n

According to the BBC, the man said he had spoken to NSW Police after reaching out to the BBC, but he did not hear from the force again.<\/p>\n

A retired detective who worked on Cheryl’s case said he believed the man’s account to be “very credible”.<\/p>\n

Another potential witness reached out to the BBC to say they saw a man taking a young girl from the beach the day Cheryl disappeared.<\/p>\n

They told the BBC: “I just [remember] this lovely little girl and she was very upset. And this man had her tightly by the hand and said ‘come on’. She obviously didn’t want to go.”<\/p>\n

\"CherylCheryl Grimmer, aged three, (centre), with her brothers(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

Three-year-old Cheryl went missing from a beach in Wollongong in 1970, a year after her family emigrated from Knowle<\/a> to the New South Wales city.<\/p>\n

Cheryl’s brother Ricki Nash, who was just seven when she disappeared, previously spoke to BristolLive where he said: \u201cTo my dying breath, I will never give up until justice is served.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the day Cheryl disappeared is like yesterday. I keep reliving it over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case sparked one of the country\u2019s biggest ever manhunts, but Cheryl was never found.<\/p>\n

The BBC reports that a petition asking the state parliament to set up an inquiry into missing persons investigations overseen by NSW Police received more than 10,000 signatures.<\/p>\n

The issue was debated in parliament but the state minister for police and counter-terrorism made no commitment to holding an inquiry.<\/p>\n

NSW Police said all the information it received, including potential eyewitness accounts from the BBC, was properly assessed.<\/p>\n

The force also reportedly said that it was not the case that everyone who contacted them would be interviewed.<\/p>\n

It said: “Each submission is evaluated on its merits, and decisions regarding subsequent action are made in accordance with investigative standards and the relevance of the information to the established facts.”<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC, Ricki said: “You offer a million dollar reward, people come forward, you don’t speak to them. Why offer the reward?<\/p>\n

“Was that just to appease our family, appease the public, just to make yourselves look good – look like you’re doing something?<\/p>\n

“In actual fact, you’re doing nothing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cheryl was abducted from a beach in Australia after emigrating from BristolCheryl Grimmer(Image: PA) The family of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[192,381,748,393,4884,378,16656,285,13466,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-466891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-bristol","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-in-the-news","14":"tag-knowle","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-terrorism","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115301305410244376","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}