The coroner has concluded that convicted sex offender Neil Maxwell “unlawfully killed” teenager Leah Croucher more than three years after she disappeared while walking to work on February 15, 2019. Maxwell died in April 2019, but in October 2022, Ms Croucher’s remains were discovered in the loft of a property on Loxbeare Drive in Furzton after a handyman visited the property, tasked with eradicating a smell. She was found less than half a mile away from her home in Milton Keynes.
Tom Osborne, the coroner, said that monitoring failures regarding Maxwell by the probation service and the police could have contributed to Ms Croucher’s death. Despite extensive testing, no medical cause of death could be established, as her remains were placed in plastic bags. In October 2022, police named Maxwell as the only suspect in the case. Det Supt Kevin Brown of Thames Valley Police said he believes Ms Croucher died on or near the day she went missing and that, “on the balance of probabilities”, she was killed by Maxwell.
During the inquest, Caroline Haughey, KC, representing Ms Croucher’s family, queried whether the detective thought that Ms Croucher was likely subjected to an “unwarranted sexual attack” and had “reacted” in the light of her martial arts ability, leading to her death. Det Supt Brown replied that he believed she would have defended herself, which may have “escalated the situation.” The inquest heard Maxwell was assessed as a medium risk after he was convicted of sexual assault in February 2018, but subsequently it was decided he should have been deemed a high risk.
Mr Osborne concluded that Maxwell’s risk level had been “underestimated and under-reported” and there was a failure in the process to monitor his attendance at appointments, failures in risk assessments, and a failure to share information between probation and police services. In his overall assessment, he stated that “there may have been a contribution by these failures to the death of Leah Croucher.
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