Muriel McKay: Family of murdered woman claim police jeopardising search for body by ‘spooking’ killer
The family of murdered Muriel McKay have condemned Scotland Yard detectives for the way they interviewed her killer in the continuing search for her remains.
After a renewed campaign to find her body, her relatives now fear police will abandon plans to dig at the Hertfordshire farm where Mrs McKay was held ransom by her kidnappers 55 years ago.
Her family says the killer has already pinpointed the burial site to them.
Dianne McKay and Hosein looking through photos of the farm when they met in January
The British officers collected Nizam Hosein, 76, from his ramshackle home in Trinidad last week and spent three days in a local police station asking him to identify the exact spot where he buried Mrs McKay.
Hosein was deported to the island after serving 20 years for Mrs McKay’s kidnap and murder. It was one of the first murder trials without a body. Until recently he had refused to say what happened to his victim.
After initially telling the family they were making progress in their interviews with Hosein, Detective Superintendent Katherine Goodwin then sent them a message: “He was unable to provide a location with any consistency, which is not what you or we wanted to find.”
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Daughter meets mother’s killer
Mark Dyer, Mrs McKay’s grandson, confronted the officers on their return to Gatwick Airport early on Saturday.
He told Sky News: “This is most upsetting to us personally, having done so much for this search to find my grandmother who has now been twice failed by the Metropolitan Police.
“We warned the police that going mob-handed and putting him in a police station would spook him and they would never get much out of him. He is terrified of police officers and needs to be carefully handled and encouraged to speak about those days.”
Nizamodeen Hosein had kept the secret of Muriel McKay’s fate for more than 50 years
Dianne McKay, Muriel’s daughter, said: “It’s taken us nearly three years to get this guy to really be open and friendly with us, and that’s not what we ever set out to achieve.
“We only wanted information, but we’ve had to work very hard psychologically on his character to gain his confidence, and they walked in and snuffed it.”
Mr Dyer said: “Many times Nizam has told the family the precise burial spot. He hasn’t wavered. He pointed it out on old photographs of the farm we showed him and has offered to return to the UK to show us exactly where we will find my grandmother.”
He also told Sky News that he feels he and his mother “are being played with”.
“It’s not a game,” he added. “My mother’s emotions and health are being played with, this has got to stop.
“Either my grandmother is where Nizam says she is, or she’s not, it’s simple. This is not rocket science.”
Businessman Mr Dyer and his mother Dianne met Hosein in January after flying 4,500 miles to Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago.
The Hertfordshire farm where Muriel McKay was kept prisoner by the Hosein brothers
Sky News filmed a series of meetings, in which Hosein was shown old and new photographs of the farm and studied computer-generated images to identify the burial site.
He said at the time: “Go through the kitchen door, come through the open land, turn left and it’s two feet from the hedge, that’s where the body is.”
A week later, after studying the Sky News footage, Det Supt Goodwin said she found Hosein’s evidence “compelling”, but wanted to meet him face to face to test his credibility and memory.
Mark Dyer confronted Supt Katherine Goodwin at Gatwick Airport
She and two colleagues landed on the island on Monday and began interviewing Hosein the next day. They had urged the family not to be there and to let them speak to him alone.
She hoped to gather enough evidence to justify a new search at the farm near the village of Stocking Pelham, or urge the Home Office to lift Hosein’s deportation order and let him return briefly to the farm to show police exactly where to dig.
Read more:
Killer reveals location of victim’s remains
Muriel McKay’s killer mees Scotland Yard
Farm owner to allow police search for remains
Her colleagues searched a patch of the farmland two years ago, but found nothing during a five-day excavation. The family said they had dug in the wrong place.
Fifteen months ago, Dianne McKay, 84, made an official complaint about the attitude towards her one by one of the officers involved in the first search.
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Muriel McKay’s killer wants to help find her body
She accused him of “completely and wholly unacceptable behaviour” by confronting and shouting at her and accusing her of breaching an agreement with the landowner who had allowed the first police search.
She wrote to Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley: “I was gravely surprised and still feel deeply traumatised by his behaviour.”
Scotland Yard spokesperson said: “We can confirm a public complaint has been received and is now being assessed. We will remain in contact with the complainant during this process.”
The crash involving a cargo ship and oil tanker off the East Yorkshire coast is bad news for the sea, fish and air in the area. What we don’t know yet is quite how bad it will be.
That depends on a few things – but the speed of the collision, clouds of filthy black smoke from the fires and the leaked fuel are certainly worrying.
Firstly, it matters what was on board those two massive vessels.
Follow live: Jet fuel spilling into sea after tanker collision
Analytics firm Vortexa estimates the 183m-long tanker was carrying about 130,000 barrels of jet fuel (kerosene), which is now leaking into the sea.
Jet fuel is not as sticky or viscous as heavier types of oil, thankfully, so it’s less likely to clog the feathers and fur of birds and seals. It can also be broken down by natural bacteria.
But it can still poison fish and kill animals and plants on the shoreline if it makes its way into the soil there.
The Marine Conservation Society has pointed out the site in the Humber estuary is close to some protected areas and is important for seabirds and harbour porpoises.
And both ships will have been powered by a dirtier, heavier kind of oil – likely marine gas oil or heavy fuel oil, though we don’t know the details yet.
Heavy fuel oil is nasty stuff.
Pic: Bartek Smialek/PA
Cheap, thick and tar-like, it can smother animals and is very dangerous if they consume it, and is extremely difficult to clean up. Let’s hope this isn’t creeping around the North Sea already.
We don’t know how much of either the jet fuel or the oil powering the ships has leaked, or how much will be burned off in the violent fires – which themselves are ploughing black smoke and filthy air pollution into the surrounding atmosphere.
And we don’t know for sure what was on the Solong cargo ship and if, or what, will go into the sea.
Cargo ship ‘had sodium cyanide on board’
It was carrying 15 containers of sodium cyanide among other cargo, according to a report from maritime data provider Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
The container vessel was also transporting an unknown quantity of alcohol, said the casualty report – an assessment of incidents at sea – citing a message from the local coastguard.
Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down, and potentially can choke or trap animals.
Many of us have seen that uncomfortable viral video of a turtle having a straw yanked out of its nose. Previous accidents on cargo ships have seen plastic Lego pieces wash up in Cornwall 25 years later.
Read more:
How UK North Sea platforms dump gas
Secondly, the impact depends on the sea and weather conditions around it.
Things like the wind and currents affect how an oil spill spreads in the sea. Scientists can draw up computer models to simulate how the oil could behave.
Thirdly, it matters how quickly this is all tackled and then cleaned up, if necessary, and if it can be.
Usually the slower the response, the worse the impact.
The coastguard has said the incident “remains ongoing” and it has started assessing the “likely counter pollution response” that will be required.
Such a response might need the help of numerous public bodies: the government environment department, the transport department, the Environment Agency and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
So for now the best we can hope for – aside from the welfare of the people involved – is that not all the oil is spilled or burnt, that conditions are calm and that rescuers and those cleaning up can work swiftly.
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