‘Opportunities lost’ over missing teenager Leah Croucher found dead after three years
Police and probation services admit failings after 19-year-old’s body discovered less than half a mile from where she was last seen
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“Lost opportunities” have been admitted over a teenager whose body was found less than half a mile from where she was last seen three years before, a pre-inquest review has heard.
Leah Croucher, 19, disappeared while walking to work on February 15, 2019, and no trace of her was found for years despite a huge search operation.
The teenager’s body was discovered at a house in Milton Keynes in October 2022 after a tip-off from a member of the public.
Prime suspect Neil Maxwell was a wanted and previously convicted sex offender who killed himself while on the run from police in April 2019, two months after Ms Croucher vanished.
Senior coroner at Milton Keynes Coroner’s Court, Tom Osborne, said the inquest would look at admitted failings by the police and probation services that had not yet been specified publicly.
Internal reviews had been carried out and the court heard that a redacted report on the Thames Valley Police investigation included around 250 documents.
Speaking after the hearing, Caroline Haughey KC, representing the family, said: “Why should their misery be compounded by failings in the process?
“Leah was walking to work to carry on a normal day and because of failings, that predator was on the street – he should never have been at large.”
She said that “this could have happened to any of us” and that the family wanted to ensure “that this will never happen again”.
They had been “subject to vitriol and trauma” online, with social media users falsely accusing family members of being involved in Ms Croucher’s death, she added.
Ms Haughey was representing the family pro bono and said “otherwise they would have no one” because they could not afford counsel.
She told the court she was the only lawyer who would volunteer without a fee.
Coroner Mr Osborne said if the failings had not been sufficiently amended, then a report to prevent future deaths would be ordered, where he could tell organisations, government departments and individuals what action needed to be taken.
“If I am satisfied that those failings and concerns have been addressed satisfactorily by further statements from police and probation, then I no longer have that duty to make those points,” he said.
He cautioned “when I get home at night and talk to my wife about my job, she says none of your stories have happy endings”.
But he added that a future deaths report could help fulfil the Croucher family’s wish that they “do not want another family going through what we’ve been through”.
Maxwell was the only person with keys to the property on Loxbeare Drive, Furzton, where Ms Croucher’s body was found.
He was wanted for a sex attack in Newport Pagnell, Milton Keynes, in November 2018 and used false names to evade arrest, as well as stopping using his phone and car.
Officers believe he also lost weight and grew a beard to change his appearance.
Thames Valley Police released a computer-generated e-fit of Maxwell in January 2023 as detectives tried to confirm that he had killed Ms Croucher.
The inquest will be heard on June 19 and 20.