The man, who cannot be named because he was 16 at the time, appeared by video link at Wollongong Local Court on Friday as a retired detective, Philip Findlay, attempted to recall details of the original police investigation from 47 years ago. 

Mr Findlay was one of two detectives in the room on April 29, 1971, when the accused man allegedly described how he abducted Cheryl with the intention of sexually assaulting her on January 12, 1970.

Acting under the late homicide squad detective Joe Parrington in an era unaided by electronic recording devices, Mr Findlay took down the alleged confession using a typewriter. 

In the resulting notes, tendered to Wollongong Local Court Friday, the accused man allegedly told how he suffocated Cheryl in bushland near what he described as Bulli. He led police on a walk of the supposed area four days later, but said it was much-changed, with bushland bulldozed and bitumen roads in the process of being laid. Cheryl’s body was never found. 

The typed notes reveal police failed to act on the man’s confession due to a lack of “material evidence” and after interviewing several people who failed to corroborate multiple details of his story. 

In their notes, the detectives describe the suspect teen as “moody, quick to anger, and a ‘loner’”.

“When spoken to he is vague in the extreme, appears susceptible to suggestion and frequently was found to be telling untruths,” they wrote. 

The police notes catalog “extensive inquiry” made to establish the teen’s whereabouts between January 8, 1970, when he escaped from a Melbourne hostel, and February 5, 1970, when he was located at Carnavon. 

“His whereabouts between those dates, despite extensive inquiry, cannot be definitely determined,” the detectives concluded. “Clearly it is possible that he could have been in Sydney or Wollongong on the 12^th January, 1970, but there is no direct evidence to prove this”. 

Some of Friday’s cross-examination focused on the circumstances of the alleged confession, which was recorded at the Metropolitan Children’s Shelter in Surry Hills – the equivalent of a juvenile detention centre. 

Mr Findlay agreed a manager summoned he and Det Sgt Parrington to the home. He agreed there had been no effort to contact the then-teen’s parents, and he had not been asked if he would like legal advice before speaking to police. 

Cheryl’s three brothers Ricki, then 7, Stephen, 5, and Paul, 4 were at the beach with her on the day she was snatched. All were at court to witness Friday’s proceedings. 

The matter returns to the Supreme Court on September 7. 

The man has been refused bail, meantime.