The interview, in which the then-teenager confessed to having abducted and murdered the toddler, began with the manager of the Metropolitan Boys' Shelter telling police the accused "may be in possession of information which could be of value to us in our investigations". "The police then explained how they were going to ask him questions, but what they described was more befitting a style in which a mere witness might be questioned. There was no caution," Justice Hulme said. Volunteers search sand dunes near Fairy Meadow in the hunt for Cheryl Grimmer on January 14, 1970. Credit:Fairfax Media In response to detectives asking him what he knew about Cheryl’s disappearance, the teenager said: “I arrived at Fairy Meadow Beach early on the morning of the 12th January, 1970, I hung around the beach area until I seen (sic) these bunch of children come up from a swim. “They all went into the changing room and I took that they changed themselves then they came out of the change room. I saw this little girl get a drink from a bubbler outside the change room. Some of the children started to walk away and this little girl hung back. I came around from the back of the shower block and grabbed the little girl …”

Justice Hulme said the teenager made further admissions during a "walk through" interview with police the following month. "Police then sought evidence to confirm the truthfulness of the accused's confession. In the end they were not satisfied that they had enough in this respect and no charges were laid," he said. A coronial inquest into Cheryl Grimmer's disappearance in May 2011 found she died some time after she disappeared, from an unknown cause. The confession was excluded on the basis of unfairness, with Justice Hulme noting there was no adult present, the accused was vulnerable at the time, and the accused was of below average intelligence with a "very disturbed upbringing". “In addition to these personal attributes, the accused did not have the benefit of any legal advice as to the ramifications of answering police questions as opposed to exercising his right to silence. There was also no contemporaneous psychiatric or psychological assessment as to whether he was in a fit state to understand a caution and be interviewed,” Justice Hulme said.

Cheryl Grimmer with her father Vince. Credit:Fairfax Media Following the judgment, the Director of Public Prosecutions Lloyd Babb, SC, "directed no further proceedings". "In the absence of that interview there was insufficient evidence for the case to proceed," a DPP spokeswoman said. The man walked free from court on Friday. He was living in Frankston South, in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, at the time of his arrest. Cheryl was three when she vanished from outside a shower block at Fairy Meadow following a day at the beach with her mother and brothers. A coronial inquest into her disappearance in May 2011 found she died some time after she disappeared, from an unknown cause. Justice Hulme said he accepted it is "quite likely the accused realised he was confessing in clear terms that he abducted and murdered the little girl".

"He told the detectives that he intended to have sexual intercourse with her; he did not because she started to scream as soon as he took a gag off her; so he then strangled her, she stopped breathing and he thought she was dead," Justice Hulme said, adding that the accused told police he then "panicked and covered her up with bushes and run for it". The accused in police custody in March 2017. Credit:NSW Police In 2017, Cheryl's brother Stephen Grimmer said it was "unreal" police had made an arrest after more than 40 years and said he promised his mother in the moments before she died that they would keep looking for Cheryl. In a statement, NSW Police said the force "is assessing its legal options following the court's decision".