Suspect named in NSW parliament after Grimmer’s family told the man, known by pseudonym ‘Mercury’, to meet with them by Wednesday midnight or they would make his identity public
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
A New South Wales MP has used parliament to reveal the identity of a man who was previously charged by police over the alleged abduction and murder of UK-born toddler Cheryl Grimmer 55 years ago.
Grimmer vanished from outside a shower block while with her mother and three older brothers at Fairy Meadow beach in the Illawarra region of New South Wales on 12 January 1970.
The man, known under the pseudonym “Mercury”, faced a trial in 2018 after he pleaded not guilty. But it then collapsed after a judge ruled that a 1971 police interview where he confessed to the murder was not admissible.
