Two months after the November 2020 disappearance of Sydney fraudster Melissa Caddick, police were still to obtain the DNA results from her toothbrush and, after three months, only 20 per cent of the CCTV footage police had obtained had been reviewed, an inquest has heard.
Detective Inspector Gretchen Atkins, the crime manager of the Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command, blamed staff shortages and lack of resources for the delays, the inquest into Caddick’s disappearance and presumed death has heard.
Gretchen Atkins at the NSW Coroners Court in September.Credit:Kate Geraghty
Caddick, 49, vanished at 5.30am on November 12, 2020. Hours before her disappearance, her Dover Heights home was raided by Australian Federal Police acting on behalf of the corporate regulator, ASIC, relating to a $23 million Ponzi scheme Caddick had been running since 2012. Her victims were mainly family and friends.
There have been no sightings of Caddick and no CCTV footage of her movements that morning has ever been recovered.
The CCTV equipment at Caddick’s house in Wallangra Road had been seized by the Australian Federal Police the previous day.
Melissa Caddick during the raid by the AFP.
Caddick’s partial remains, contained in her running shoe, washed up on a remote South Coast beach on February 21, 2021.
Six days earlier Atkins was at Bondi police station for the three-month review of the police investigation into Caddick’s disappearance. The officer-in-charge of the investigation, Detective Sergeant Michael Foscholo, told the meeting that he was “struggling” and needed help as only 20 per cent of the CCTV footage had been reviewed.
Atkins said that extra police had been assigned to review footage including injured police officers who couldn’t do regular duties.
I have been writing professionally for over 20 years and have a deep understanding of the psychological and emotional elements that affect people. I’m an experienced ghostwriter and editor, as well as an award-winning author of five novels.