The long-awaited murder trial of a man accused of killing a British toddler in Australia nearly 50 years ago will not go ahead, after a judge ruled key evidence was inadmissible.
Three-year-old Cheryl Grimmer vanished from a New South Wales beach in 1970 shortly after her family had emigrated from Bristol.
Her disappearance remains one of Australia’s longest unsolved mysteries.
A man – now in his 60s – was finally due to stand trial for her murder in May.
But the case was scrapped on Friday after Justice Robert Hulme said a police interview with the suspect – carried out in 1971 when the accused was just 17 – did not meet legal requirements because the then teenager did not have an adult present.
In his judgement at the Supreme Court of New South Wales, the judge said: “The Crown accepts that its case cannot succeed without it."
He added that, although the accused had confessed to killing Cheryl during the course of the interview - a confession since retracted - there were concerns he may have been easily led due to his “low intelligence”.
No further proceedings will now take place against the man, who cannot be named because he was under 18 at the time of the killing.
The victim’s family said they were devastated by the decision.
"We're just a bit numb, a bit shocked… no words can describe how I feel at the moment," brother Rick Nash told reporters outside the court.
Cheryl’s disappearance from a beach shower block on 12 January, 1970, in the city of Wollongong, sparked one of the country’s highest profile police searches.
Although no trace of the girl was ever found, the case was reopened after a coroner’s report in 2011 ruled she was dead and recommended that police reinvestigate.
