Cheryl Grimmer murder accused refuses to front court

The man accused of murdering Cheryl Grimmer in 1970 chose to remain in his cell today rather than attend a bail hearing.

Reports said that the 63-year-old, who was arrested in Victoria on Wednesday and extradited to New South Wales yesterday, did not attend Wollongong Local Court on Friday or apply for bail. Bail was then formally refused, the Melbourne Age reported.

But the Age said that the man’s defence lawyer asked that her client receive urgent psychiatric attention while in custody on the murder charge.

Grimmer’s brother, Stephen Grimmer, and his niece, Melanie Grimmer, had attended court in the hope of seeing the accused, and said afterward they were disappointed he had declined to appear. 

Stephen Grimmer said he was wearing sunglasses to hide his tears. 

“You don’t want to see big boys cry,” he told news agency AAP. 

The matter was adjourned to May 24 while police prepared their evidence.

Police have accused the unnamed man of three-year-old Grimmer within an hour or so of her disappearance from a toilet block at Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong 47 years ago.

Police said the details of the offence, which would have been committed when the accused was 16 years old, were “quite horrific”, although they did not go into details. They also said that the accused had been a person of interest in the original investigation into Grimmer’s disappearance, the ABC reported.

The child’s body has never been found, but a coroner’s inquest in 2011 declared her dead. Her parents died without knowing the whereabouts of their daughter.

Do you remember this case? Are you glad to see that some closure might be possible for the Grimmer family?