The parents of murdered Leah Croucher have spoken about their ‘torture’ as police blunders prolonged their agony whilst trying to find their missing daughter.
Leah was found dead in the loft of a house on October 10, 2022 – almost four years after her disappearance on February 15, 2019, while walking to work on Buzzacott Lane, Furzton, Milton Keynes.
During the search for the teenager, officers told parents John and Claire Croucher that they had found a human scalp, which later turned out to be horse’s mane, and mistook a severed foot for that of Leah’s.
John had previously said that Leah was ‘severely let down’ by police and probation services after a coroner concluded that Leah was ‘murdered’ by Neil Maxwell following a series of failures by the authorities.
Speaking to The Mirror about the distressing handling of the case by the force, John said: ‘It was torture, we understand the police were doing the best they could. But they were making mistakes, too. We were called out from work one day to say they had possibly found a human scalp.
‘They said they had confirmed it was a human scalp and it was sent for DNA testing. It was possibly one of the longest weeks we had. Then it came back that it was ¬actually a horse’s mane.’
The couple were also told that a random foot had been found by a dogwalker. Detectives said it was a size four and belonged to a female aged 16 to 25 who had died in January 2019.
The foot was put forward for DNA testing, which took three weeks, and showed that it was not Leah’s, a finding that mother Claire described as ‘heartbreaking’.
Leah’s body was found in October 2022 in an empty property in Milton Keynes where Maxwell, 49, had worked as a handyman. He killed himself in a bike shed two months after killing Leah.
Maxwell had a ‘predilection for young females’ and was being hunted by police at the time Leah went missing. Officers even had a tip off about Maxwell but concluded there was no link between him and Leah.
At an inquest into Leah’s death held in June, John called on the system of managing sexual offenders to be improved so that appropriate and accurate information sharing takes place.
He said: ‘The current system is not equipped to properly manage these offenders and we fear that until these failings are properly addressed, another family will have to face the same awful consequences we will never recover from.’
‘We will never know what Leah had to face in the last moments of her life and unfortunately the inquest process has not answered our key questions about the failings in the apprehension of the key suspect in this matter,’ Mr Croucher added.
‘We ask the police to be open with us now the inquest has concluded and answer the questions we have about the investigation.’
The coroner concluded that Leah had died on the day she disappeared, February 15 2019, adding: ‘I find that she was murdered by Neil Maxwell. I also find that there were a number of failings with regard to the monitoring of Neil Maxwell.’
‘An inexperienced probation officer was supervising him at the time, as a convicted sex offender, had little experience of such offenders.
‘The risk that Neil Maxwell posed to the public generally was underestimated and unreported. There was also a failure of the process to monitor Neil Maxwell as regards attendance at appointments.’
The coroner added there was a failure in the risk assessment carried out and a failure to properly share information between the police and probation on a shared computer system.
But the coroner said the evidence did not allow him to conclude that the failings caused or contributed to Leah’s death. A prevention of future deaths report was also ordered.
‘While there were failings in the monitoring process, it remains speculative to determine that those failings contributed directly to her death’, the coroner said. ‘Although it is possible that those failings may have played a part in her death.’
The inquest heard Maxwell had gone missing and proved ‘impossible to find’ for three months after an allegation was made against him on November 29 2018.
Maxwell had stopped using his phone in December 2018 and police had been in contact with his family, including his mother, in efforts to trace him.
Maxwell had spent years in prison for numerous different offences – including attempted rape – but was incorrectly labelled as ‘medium risk’ in a report submitted to magistrates who sentenced him to a community order in February 2018.
Caroline Haughey KC told the inquest how Maxwell received a custodial sentence in 2001 and then a further custodial sentence in 2002. He was only released in 2009.
Detective Chief Superintendent Joseph Kidman told the inquest that there were 1,975 sex offenders in the area they were searching, and Maxwell was a registered level-one sex offender.
Detective Superintendent Kevin Brown told the inquest the probe had involved searching 3,500 houses, carrying out 1,500 lines of inquiry, examining 1,200 documents, 1,600 messages and taking 500 statements.
The name of Maxwell came up in May 2019 after a member of the public called up to provide information, but officers concluded there was no link between him and Leah, DSI Brown said.
But on Monday October 10 2022, the investigation finally found Leah after receiving a call from a man doing maintenance work.
‘He was trying to eradicate a smell from the property, which took him into the loft area where he discovered what he thought were human remains’, DSI Brown said.
The owners of the ‘unremarkable’ four-bedroom semi-detached house in Loxbeare Drive, Furzton, lived abroad and used the property as a holiday home, but had not returned since the Covid pandemic broke out in early 2020, the officer said.
Tom Osborne, Senior Coroner for Milton Keynes, told the inquest: ‘Whoever had placed the body in the loft had taken steps to try and remove certain limbs. They were in plastic bags.’
Leah was identified from dental records and a post mortem examination and a specialist bone pathologist was unable to ascertain a cause of death.
The court heard Maxwell – who had been at the property and, as a maintenance man, was the only person to have keys – was later found dead elsewhere in Milton Keynes in 2019. He had committed suicide and died from hanging.
DSI Brown said he was ‘absolutely’ sure Maxwell had killed Leah and said he would have pressed for the Crown Prosecution Service to charge him with murder or manslaughter if he had been alive.
Leha’s distraught brother had even taken his own life after revealing he was struggling to cope with her disappearance.
Leah Croucher’s mother Claire told the inquest about how her daughter was a ‘true fighter who would never give in’, as she had shown when she achieved her black belt in taekwondo.
Paying tribute to her daughter, she said: ‘She was my world. Even though she was so quiet and -unassuming, it’s amazing how quiet things went after she vanished. We were so affected by losing our little girl.’
The Probation Service ¬apologised for ‘the failings’ it ¬highlighted and said: ‘We have now taken a series of steps to address the risk management of offenders.’