British family may hold key to girl’s abduction

POLICE are looking for a British family who may have witnessed the kidnap of a three-year-old girl on an Australian beach almost 50 years ago.

Detectives are appealing for the Goodyear family from Nottingham to come forward after they gave statements on the day Cheryl Grimmer disappeared from a shower block during a family trip to a New South Wales beach in 1970.

Last month a 63-year-old man, who cannot be named, was charged with Cheryl’s abduction and murder.

Peter William Aubrey Goodyear, his wife, Mavis, and their two daughters, Karen and Jannette all gave statements. Peter, then 37, said he saw a man leaving the block carrying a child.

But later that year the family moved to Papua New Guinea before returning to Nottinghamshire.

All attempts to contact them in Britain have so far failed. Police want to hear from anyone who can help locate the Goodyears.