Exclusive:
Speaking exclusively to The Mirror, John and Claire Croucher have relived the harrowing moment they put up a sign appealing for their missing daughter just yards from the place she was murdered
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Leah Croucher’s parents issue statement outside coroner’s court
The parents of Leah Croucher today revealed they plastered a missing poster on a tree just yards from the home where she was murdered – not knowing her decomposing body lay inside.
John and Claire Croucher revealed they staged a desperate four-year search for the missing teen after she vanished on her way to work in February 2019.
She lay undiscovered after fugitive sex predator Neil Maxwell, 49, kidnapped her, killed her and stuffed her dismembered body in bags in the loft of an empty home where he was working as a handyman.
Now “haunted” John, 50, and Claire, 49, have told how they had had no idea they had unwittingly passed the spot where she died – less than half a mile from where she was last seen alive.
In an exclusive interview with the Mirror, care home manager Claire, 49, said: “I walked past the house once a month and I’d walk the route and put posters up. We put a poster up on a tree outside the house, not knowing she was there. We had no idea that we were so close to her.”
Claire and warehouse manager John spoke out after a senior coroner issued a call for stricter monitoring of sex offenders to stop further deaths.
Tom Osborne warned that current supervisions of convicted offenders were not robust enough and may lead to more deaths like tragic Leah, 19.
She vanished in February 2019 while walking to work in Furzton, Milton Keynes, Bucks.
Following the tragic discovery, police named Maxwell as the prime suspect in her murder. The convicted sex offender took his own life on April 20, 2019, while on the run from police.
Maxwell was found to be in breach of his probation terms and not closely monitored. John and Claire have now urged probation minister Lord Timpson to carry out a “full and honest” review of the probation service so no other family suffers like they have.
Claire said: “We will do whatever it takes to improve the system.
“We cannot, in all good conscience, sit at home and do nothing. We cannot watch another family go through what we have been through.
“Somebody has to protect young girls out there. The system is flawed to protect the offender, not the victims.
“The dead, mutilated body of my daughter is proof that we are victims. We want Lord Timpson to do an honest review of the department and put in procedures that they can follow.”
