The family of murdered teenager Leah Croucher have spoken of the cruel online trolling they endured, the tragic death of her brother Haydon, and their campaign for mandatory minimum sentences for repeat sex offenders.
Leah, 19, disappeared while walking from her home in Emerson Valley, Milton Keynes, to work on 15 February 2019. Her father John received a call from Leah's work friend at 5.10pm asking if he knew where she was. He and his wife Claire knew immediately something was wrong.
'We knew this wasn't Leah. She hadn't run away. She came from a loving home and we were going on holiday to Cape Verde 10 days later. We were all packing. She'd been out and bought some new holiday clothes,' John, 53, told Metro.
The couple rushed home to find Leah's curtains open, her bed neatly made, her passport in a drawer and £500 worth of foreign currency safely stowed. There were no signs she had run away. The family called the police that evening and a missing person investigation was launched.
Online suspicion and tragedy
For weeks, Leah's older brother Haydon walked around Milton Keynes in a high-vis jacket with 'Have You Seen Leah' printed on the back, while he and sister Jade handed out leaflets and put up posters. Despite their efforts, online suspicion turned towards Haydon and John.
'I had to turn myself off from it because all I was interested in was finding my daughter. What disturbed me even more was when they started on my son. That really hurt,' John remembers. 'They accused him of throwing her down the stairs because she might have been pregnant, and said I'd helped him hide her body. Just absolute fictitious rubbish.'
As weeks turned into months with no sign of Leah, Haydon's mental health spiralled and he told Jade he couldn't cope with the anguish. On Thursday 14 November 2019, Jade and his mum Tracey found him in his flat. He had taken his own life. John believes the trolling contributed to his death.
'Haydon was diagnosed bipolar, Leah went missing and he just couldn't cope. And then he kept reading what everyone was writing about him. If you're already suffering from mental illness anyway, it's going to prey on you. It did contribute to his downfall.'
Living in limbo
Losing Haydon while already trapped between hope, grief and terror over Leah's disappearance caused the family unimaginable pain. Claire, 51, told Metro: 'The only way to cope was that you couldn't think of both children at the same time. While we're thinking of Leah, we feel guilty that we're not thinking of Haydon. While we think of Haydon, we feel guilty about Leah.'
Meanwhile, Leah remained missing, as armchair sleuths and online trolls continued to spout theories. The family hunted Birmingham on a false lead and sent police to friends and acquaintances. For years, they lived in limbo. Each day, Claire would go downstairs, make tea, light a cigarette and go into the garden to call Leah, leaving tearful messages asking her to come home.
'You hold on to that little grain of hope [that she is still alive], and it just festers. I didn't realise how much hope we had until the night we were told she'd been murdered,' Claire says.
On Monday 10 October 2022, more than three and a half years after Leah was last seen, a contractor contacted police after a landlord living abroad asked him to investigate a foul odour at an address minutes from Leah's home. He found black bags in the loft surrounded by dried blood.
Finding and aftermath
As soon as family liaison officers arrived at their home, Claire, John and Jade knew their daughter's body had been found. Leah and personal belongings were discovered at the address, less than half a mile from her home. Outside, attached to a telephone pole, was a missing poster bearing the teenager's face.
'We were just in despair. Our world had already ended. This was a different hurt,' John says. 'I stood outside in the garden thinking to myself, I can't believe how much hope I had, and I can't believe how stupid I was to have that hope because I knew it was rubbish. Why did I let it grow over the past four years?'
Four days after Leah was discovered, Thames Valley Police said they believed a man named Neil Maxwell had killed her. He had previous convictions for sexual offences against women and girls and was wanted for sexual assault in 2018. He was found dead on 20 April 2019, having taken his own life two months after Leah went missing.
An inquest in 2024 found failings in the monitoring of Maxwell, a convicted sex offender. The coroner concluded Leah was 'unlawfully killed' by Maxwell, that she was most likely the victim of an 'unwarranted sex attack' and that failures in his monitoring by the probation service and police 'may have played a part' in her death.
John says living with the fact that the authorities failed to look after their daughter is a 'horrific' burden, and the family are appalled by plans to release sex offenders back into the community through the early release scheme. They want people to sign their petition for Leah's Law: a mandatory minimum prison sentence for anyone convicted of a third sexual offence.
'There's no justifiable reason sexual offending should be treated more leniently. By a third conviction, it is self-evident that the offender has not been sufficiently deterred from further offending. Nobody should have to endure what we've gone through,' John says quietly.
'We've got one child left, and we want to keep her safe. I worry every time she goes out and about down to the local shop to buy a pint of milk,' adds Claire. 'I know how many pedophiles and sex offenders that are walking around the streets. We could lose a third child, that is the terror that we have. I want some reassurances that the one child we have left is safe, and I don't have that.'
When asked how they keep going in the face of such dreadful grief, Claire admits they have no other option. 'That monster took our daughter, and he took John's son. He's not getting us as well.'
The Search for Leah Croucher: A Parent's Nightmare airs on U and U&W on 13 and 14 October.
