Families detail police failures at cold case inquiry

Decades of alleged police failures in handling unsolved murders and missing persons cases are under scrutiny at a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry.

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If [the police] had done their job in 1971, we would have known the truth years ago.

Families of victims shared their pain and frustration at the first day of public hearings. Ricki Nash, brother of three-year-old Cheryl Grimmer who vanished from Fairy Meadow beach in 1970, told the inquiry, "If [the police] had done their job in 1971, we would have known the truth years ago." Cheryl's case remains unsolved despite a suspect being charged in 2017, only for the trial to collapse.

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Cheryl was not a case file, she was an amazing funny little girl.

Kevin Docherty, twin brother of Kay Docherty who disappeared near Wollongong in 1979, spoke of his parents dying of heartbreak. He recounted his mother's experience at the police station, where she felt dismissed and her daughter was wrongly presumed a runaway. "Both my parents went to an early grave without answers or knowing what happened to their only daughter," he said.

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Both my parents went to an early grave without answers or knowing what happened to their only daughter.

The inquiry is examining several cases, including those potentially linked to notorious serial killer Ivan Milat, who murdered at least seven backpackers between 1989 and 1992. Keren Rowland's cousin, Dr. Andrea Hughes, submitted that Rowland might have been Milat's first victim in 1971. Forensic criminologist Dr. Xanthe Weston also testified, describing Milat as

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As mum always said, when she went to that police station that night, there was one good cop, there was one bad cop.