British twist emerges in Cheryl Grimmer murder case

Police working on the 47-year-old Cheryl Grimmer case are searching for a British family who may be key to their inquiries.

New South Wales Police have issued a statement calling for anyone who knows the whereabouts of the Goodyear family, thought to last living in Oxton, Nottinghamshire, to contact them.

Last month police charged a 63-year-old Melbourne man with the kidnapping and murder of three-year-old Grimmer at Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong. The little girl disappeared from a shower block after a day at the beach with her mother and brothers. Her body has never been found.

Wollongong detectives said that the Goodyear family provided crucial statements to police at the beach on January 12, 1970, the day of Grimmer’s disappearance.

Peter William Aubrey Goodyear, then 37, his wife Mavis, and daughters Karen, then 6, and Janette, 5, were living at the Fairy Meadow Commonwealth Hostel at the time.  Police said Goodyear worked at the John Lysaght Springhill metalworks in the Illawarra before moving to Papua New Guinea to work on a plantation in late 1970. The family is thought to have later returned to England. 

According to reports, Goodyear told police at the time that he’d seen a dark-haired man carrying a limp, blonde girl under his arm to a car on the day Grimmer vanished.

“We’ve been making inquiries with authorities in Britain in a bid to find Mr Goodyear, if he’s still alive, to determine whether he can still assist with our ongoing inquiries,” detective sergeant Damian Loone said in the NSW Police statement. “To date, those efforts have not been successful.”

Police have asked anyone who may know of the Goodyear family’s wherabouts to contact Crime Stoppers in Australia on 1800 333 000 or Wollongong detectives on + 61 2 4226 7899.

The man charged with Grimmer’s murder refused to leave his cell to face a bail hearing last month, while his lawyers asked that he receive urgent psychiatric attention.

Police have accused the unnamed man of killing Grimmer within an hour or so of her disappearance, and said that details of the offence were “quite horrific”.

The matter is due back in court on May 24.

Do you remember the news when Cheryl Grimmer disappeared? Have you been following this case?