Police boss orders review into tragic Leah Croucher case to ensure mistakes were not made over the years by police in Milton Keynes

Thames Valley police and crime commissioner Matthew Barber has asked for a review of the entire Leah Croucher case.

He has asked the chief constable to present him with the details to determine if any further inquiry is required.

Ever since Leah disappeared in February 2019, police had officially classed the matter as a missing persons case.

But this week the case tragically turned to a murder investigation after human remains were discovered inside a house in Loxbeare Drive, Furzton. Also inside the house were possessions 19-year-old Leah was carrying at the time she vanished.

The house was along a route that Leah walked to work and is less than a mile away from her home and around 500 metres from the last sighting of her on CCTV.

Yesterday (Friday) police named a suspect in the case as Neil Maxwell, a 52-year-old handyman who carried out maintenance on the Loxbeare Drive house on behalf of the owner, who lives abroad.

A convicted sex offender, he was the only person to have keys to the property, say police.

But in April 2019, two months after Leah disappeared, Maxwell took his own life. His body was found in Campbell Park, the Citizen can reveal.

Maxwell had been employed by the home owner to carry out some property maintenance at the house. And police say Maxwell had keys to the property from November 2018.

PCC Mr Barber has now issued a statement saying questions have “inevitably” been raised about the case.

He said: “The disappearance of Leah Croucher back in 2019 has hung over the community of Milton Keynes. Hundreds of Thames Valley Police Officers have supported the search for Leah, conducting thousands of house to house enquiries, reviewing many hundreds of hours of CCTV footage.

“The news that the investigation has moved from a missing persons enquiry to a murder investigation following the discovery of human remains will be the most bitter blow to Leah’s family and will be felt across the city.”

Mr Barber added: “Given the time that has passed questions have inevitably been raised about the earlier investigation and there is an understandable desire for more information.

"I have been briefed on developments throughout the week and have naturally discussed the case at length with the Chief Constable. None of the information I have received so far leads me to conclude that there were shortcomings in the earlier missing persons investigation.

"Nevertheless I have requested that the Chief Constable presents me with a review of the case in order to determine if any further inquiry is required.

"When the investigation changed from a missing person’s inquiry to a murder inquiry, the head of the Major Crime Unit was appointed as the senior investigating officer with Head of Crime, Detective Chief Superintendent Ian Hunter, having strategic oversight.

! If mistakes have been made I will ensure a thorough review of the missing persons investigation, but I must stress that this will be evidence-led and so far I have seen nothing to suggest any reasonable lines of enquiry were missed.”