Leah Croucher cops admit they never searched home where remains were found – and only knocked on door and left leaflets
COPS searching for Leah Croucher today admitted they never searched the house where human remains were discovered during their hunt for the missing teen.
Instead, officers from Thames Valley Police "knocked and dropped leaflets through the letterbox" during their search for the missing 19-year-old in 2019.
The admission comes as it was revealed a convicted paedophile who appeared on a national TV crime show used to live in the house on Loxbeare Drive, Milton Keynes, Bucks.
He was locked up in 2017 for sexual offences against two teenagers over a two-year period.
The paedophile was not living there when Leah went missing. Instead he was languishing in jail at the time of the disappearance, it is understood.
On Monday, human remains alongside a rucksack and personal items belonging to Leah were found at the house.
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A Thames Valley Police spokesperson said: "Monday was the first time we were alerted to this property by a member of the public in connection with this investigation.
"As such, we can confirm that the house has never been entered as part of the original investigation.
"However, as an address in Furzton, the address was visited as part our house to house enquiries as part of the investigation, during which we visited more than 4,000 addresses.
"There was no response at the property and as such leaflets would have been dropped through the letterbox."
Leah - who vanished on her way to work in February 2019 - lived just 10 minutes away from the £500k property and walked past it every day.
It is 500 yards from where she was last seen.
And it has since been confirmed a convicted paedophile used to live in the house.
The paedophile's dad said the family moved out of the house years before Leah vanished, but they were aware of her disappearance.
It is understood the property is owned by a Kuwaiti businesswoman who let it out but she has no connection to the current police inquiry.
Locals say the property has been empty since 2019.
Cleaners are understood to have been working upstairs when they spotted the hidden remains, sparking a police search of the house.
Jill Davey, who lives close to the house, said: “Leah used to walk past the house every day. I would see her walking to work.
“It just sickens me. The police were meant to have searched all the houses around here, but they obviously didn’t do their job properly.”
Leah was last seen on CCTV just after 8.15am on February 15, 2019, as she headed to her job at a finance company.
The taekwondo fan was described by loved ones as “very quiet” and “not really an outgoing type of person”, preferring to read fantasy fiction or watch DVDs in her room to nights out at the pub.
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Nine months after Leah’s disappearance, her heartbroken brother Hayden Croucher, 24, was discovered by his mother and sister Jade hanged at his flat and later died in hospital.
In a statement on the anniversary of Leah’s disappearance last February, her parents posted on social media: “Each day is torture. Each day feels like an eternity of pain and despair.”