Muriel McKay’s family wants police to share communications after failed search for remains
The family of murder victim Muriel McKay are refusing to accept police did everything they could in their recent search for her remains.
They’ve submitted a subject access request (SAR), asking to see all internal emails, texts, WhatsApp messages, paper files, letters, memos and notes of meetings, anything in which the family, the excavation or Muriel’s killer Nizamodeen Hosein were mentioned.
The demand comes a month after the Metropolitan Police finished a week-long dig at the Hertfordshire farm where Hosein claims to have buried his victim’s body within days of kidnapping her 55 years ago.
Muriel’s daughter Dianne, 85, said: “The police just gave up and then they actually closed the site down a few hours after the boss said they would be there another two or three days.
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The family of Muriel McKay were unhappy after police called off the search last month
“We’re curious what went on behind the scenes. We know what went on in the front and we found out that nobody involved in the search had ever done a search like that before.”
A SAR requires public bodies to provide an applicant with details of personal information stored in their systems.
They don’t always have to provide all or any of the data and could argue certain exemptions.
The McKays believe the detectives were half-hearted in their search, perhaps because they had excavated some of the land two years earlier and found nothing – and then admitted they had not dug part of the original search site.
The family claimed they had dug in the wrong place anyway.
Muriel’s son Ian McKay, 82, said: “I feel quite suspicious that because of things we learned during this recent search that, well, first of all, we learned that they had never completed the 2022 search.
“And yet that was signed off on as being complete.
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Nizamodden Hosein sends a message to the officer in charge of the search operation, Commander Stephen Clayman, saying he is ‘willing to come to England’.
“What we do after the SAR really depends on what we learn, but we do have legal avenues open to us and obviously we’ll certainly consider those options as and when we find something.
“We think that it’s just not credible or acceptable to us.”
Muriel McKay was 55 when she was kidnapped by brothers Arthur and Nizam Hosein from her London home just after Christmas in 1969.
She was married to Alick McKay, deputy to media mogul Rupert Murdoch who had just bought The Sun newspaper.
The bungling brothers meant to kidnap Murdoch’s wife Anna but got the wrong victim.
They held her at their rundown farm at Stocking Pelham, Hertfordshire, while they demanded a £1m ransom.
The brothers were caught, convicted, and jailed for life, but denied any involvement and Muriel’s body was never found.
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Earlier this year Nizam, now 76, long ago freed and deported to his native Trinidad, told the McKays that Muriel had died of a heart attack, and he buried her on the farm behind a barn.
One of the family’s continuing complaints is that police did not ask the Home Office to suspend Hosein’s deportation order and let him fly to the UK to show them the burial site.
When the second dig was completed last month, Detective Superintendent Katherine Goodwin said she was disappointed they hadn’t located Muriel’s remains but would not go back for another search.
She said when they interviewed Hosein themselves he was inconsistent in his memory of what he did, and she saw no benefit in bringing him to the farm.
Both farm searches were done with the permission of the farm owner Ian Marsh and he insisted he would not allow another excavation.
The Met Police have 30 days to respond to the SAR. The force would not comment on the family’s request.
A workman saved a seven-year-old boy from a burning car in the aftermath of a deadly crash caused by a suicidal ex-pilot, an inquest has heard.
The schoolboy’s rescue came following the collision on the M6, which killed former RAF man Richard Woods and four others, in October last year.
Last week a coroner ruled that Woods, 40, took his own life by deliberately driving his Skoda the wrong way down the motorway while drunk and hitting a Toyota Yaris head-on.
The driver of the Toyota, Jaroslaw Rossa, 42, was also killed, along with his two sons, Filip, 15, and Dominic, seven, and his partner Jade McEnroe, 33.
Cockermouth Coroner’s Court heard on Thursday that Ms McEnroe’s son was also in the car but survived after workman Gavin Walsh came to his rescue at the scene, which was near Tebay services in Cumbria.
In a statement to the inquest, Mr Walsh said he was a passenger in a transit van travelling to Scotland when he witnessed the crash.
He jumped out of the vehicle and used a jack to smash the rear windscreen of the Toyota and pulled the boy out of the burning vehicle.
Mr Walsh said: “We really did try, I can assure everyone we did our best. We only had minimal time.
“I saved a life that day and I hope never to witness anything like that again.”
He added that he has never stopped thinking about the boy, and said: “I hope we will meet again one day and I will give you a massive hug.”
At the time, the family were returning to Glasgow from a trip to Legoland in Windsor, Berkshire.
The inquest heard that Wood, who was travelling at a speed of at least 65mph, would have been charged with manslaughter had he survived.
Recording conclusions of unlawful killing, Cumbria assistant coroner Margaret Taylor said: “I found that Jaroslaw, Jade, Filip and Dominic died as a consequence of the unlawful acts of another driver.”
The inquest heard how Mr Woods, from Cambridgeshire, had served a distinguished 14-year career in the RAF and was a flight instructor for BAE Systems at the time of his death.
Jade McEnroe. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
Dominic and Filip. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
In Ms Taylor’s record of inquest, Mr Woods was said to have been experiencing “a number of stressors in his life” and had a “history of harmful use of alcohol”.
Following the crash, he was found to be nearly four times over the legal drink-drive limit and a two-thirds empty bottle of gin was found in his car.
On the day of his death, concerns had been raised over his behaviour at a work conference near Preston in Lancashire.
Mr Woods failed to return to his seat after lunch and was later spotted driving erratically and swerving across three northbound carriageway lanes on the M6.
After pulling onto the hard shoulder, he then proceeded to U-turn and drove southward on lane three.
Filip, Dominic and Jaroslaw Rossa. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
Detective Sergeant Deborah Story, from Cumbria Police, told the inquest that Mr Woods would have been prosecuted on four counts of manslaughter had he lived.
She said hypothetical charges of murder were considered by detectives but not thought appropriate because of a lack of information that Mr Woods knew the family or anything that provided a link between them.
Ms McEnroe’s parents, Marie McEnroe and George McNellis, told the coroner they thought it was “murder”.
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A statement from the mother of Filip and Dominic, and the ex-wife of Mr Rossa, Kamila, was read out at the inquest.
She said Mr Rossa, known as Jarek, was born in Poland where they became a couple and went on to have three boys.
He loved playing computer games and had “lots of friends”, she said, and worked at the Wagamama restaurant in Silverburn, Glasgow.
She said she was “devastated” over the deaths, adding: “Our lives will never be the same.
“I am heartbroken at the passing of my beloved angels Filip and Dominic.”
Marie McEnroe said her daughter, a spa therapist, had been in a relationship with Mr Rossa for about two-and-a-half years.
She said Jade had been a “brilliant mother” to her only child, was “really happy” with Mr Rossa and it was “lovely chaos” when all the boys were playing together.
Ms McEnroe added: “Life changed forever that day”.
Ms Taylor praised the “selfless acts of bravery” from those in the aftermath of the collision, including Mr Walsh, who she said went towards the burning car “without hesitation for his own safety”.
The coroner added: “Without his swift response, Jade’s child would also have perished.”
Addressing the bereaved family members, she said: “Your loss is unimaginable but you have conducted yourself with dignity and I thank you for that. I wish you strength for the future.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
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