The brothers of Cheryl Grimmer, a British toddler who disappeared in Australia 56 years ago, held a poignant commemoration on what would have been her 60th birthday. Cheryl vanished from a beach in New South Wales in 1970, and her body was never found despite an extensive search.
Her three brothers, Ricki, Stephen and Paul, honoured her memory by buying a card and a cake. A family spokesman told the Mirror their message to Cheryl was: “Another year has gone by without you being with us, today would have been your sixtieth birthday, 57 years of not sharing your special day with you as a family. Fortunately, we had three short years with you, in a loving, adventurous family, our parents wanted to give us a better life and moved us to Australia, where our lives unexpectedly changed forever January 12, 1970.”
Family's tribute to Cheryl
The message continued: “You will always be our beautiful, bubbly little sister, always in our hearts, never out of our thoughts.. Loved always & forever Your big brothers.”
The brothers are still seeking justice 56 years later. The man suspected of snatching three-year-old Cheryl from Fairy Meadow beach in Wollongong on 12th January 1970 has only ever been known by his codename ‘Mercury’.
The suspect and the confession
‘Mercury’, then aged 17, made a full confession in 1971, but it was ruled inadmissible in court due to legal issues. Born in Manchester, he confessed to killing her, but because no lawyer or adult was present during the interview, a judge ruled he could not be charged.
Cheryl’s parents Carole and Vince, along with her brothers, had recently moved from Bristol in the UK to Australia. Her body has never been found despite a lengthy search involving hundreds of police and volunteers. In 2020, the Mirror visited the beach on the 50th anniversary of her disappearance.
Ongoing fight for justice
Her cousin Dr Michael Grimmer, from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, is leading the battle for justice and for the confession to be heard. He said: “The court’s one-sided, accused-centric analysis stands as a profound moral and legal miscarriage. While the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions exerts exhaustive energy stretching a children's rehabilitation statute to grant permanent, lifelong legal privileges to a senior citizen in his 70s, it has completely erased the rights, memory, and extreme vulnerability of the three-year-old child victim, Cheryl Grimmer.”
He added: “The true, overwhelming unfairness in this case was inflicted entirely upon Cheryl. Mercury’s own corroborated confession describes a horrific, cold-blooded act of mature criminal sophistication: the targeted abduction, physical restraint, and brutal fatal strangulation of a defenceless three-year-old toddler.” Mercury still lives in Australia but now refuses to help police with their inquiries.
