The family of Muriel Mckay will not be allowed to investigate the garden in Bethnal Green, east London (Picture: PA Wire)
Muriel McKay’s family feel like ‘she has been kidnapped all over again’ after they lost their appeal to scan a back garden where they believe she is buried.
She was kidnapped 55-years-ago in the mistaken belief she was the then-wife of Rupert Murdoch, and held prisoner for 24 hours before being killed.
The extent of what she suffered in her final hours has never fully been known as there have been no remains to investigate.
Two men, Nizamodeen Hosein, with his brother Arthur, were convicted of her murder. And her body has never been found
Miraculously a new lead has come through, and every hint is pointing at Muriel’s body buried under the betting shop on Bethnal Green Road in east London.
But homeowners refused to allow access, stalling the family’s hopes they can finally receive closure.
On Monday, barristers for two of her children, Ian McKay and Dianne Levinson, asked a judge to order that the homeowners of two neighbouring properties on Bethnal Green Road allow them to conduct a ‘ground-penetrating radar survey’ of a shared back garden.
The hearing in London was told that the family now believe Ms McKay’s remains are buried at the site, following new information coming to light.
The ruling has now come in, with Mr Justice Richard Smith stating that he would not allow it to go ahead.
Her grandson Mark Dyer told Metro: ‘It is a completely ridiculous situation. Why would you want someone’s body in your back garden?’
Did a deathbed confession led to the body?
Desperate to find answers, the family issued a £1 million reward to help find Muriel’s body and finally lay her to rest.
Doing so, they were given three new leads. The first two hinted she was buried behind a shop or in the woodlands behind the family home, but searches turned up nothing.
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But the third lead is proving much more promising, after a man in his 90s made a deathbed confession to his children that he knew where the body was all along.
Alex McKay with his wife Muriel and family at Buckingham Palace in 1965 (Photo by Zola Bela/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)
He had owned the shop and employed one of the kidnappers Arthur Hussain. His daughter Hayley went to the police with the confession, but was dismissed out of hand.
Mark said: ‘He gave his children a letter revealing my grandmother’s body was brought into the shop, kept in the basement for a day before being buried outside.
‘In the letter he goes into detail about the stench of my grandmother’s body in the basement, and how he has lived with the guilt for years’.
What happened during the kidnapping?
During the kidnapping, the attackers took Muriel to Stocking Farm, then known as Rooks Farm, in Hertfordshire, to ransom for £1,000,000, but both refused to tell police where they buried her body.
Last year Hosein told Ms McKay’s daughter Dianne where he hid her body after she flew out to see him in native Trinidad.
Pictured is the betting shop in Bethnal Green, east London. Behind it is a garden where Muriel’s family believe she is buried (Picture: Google)
He was deported after serving 20 years in prison, while his brother Arthur died in 2009.
Hosein told them: ‘Go through the kitchen door, come through the open land, turn left and it’s two feet from the hedge, that’s where the body is.’
But police have revealed they have been unable to find the remains, despite Hosein’s claim.
Why can’t they search the Bethnal Green garden?
Despite new evidence, police say this still does not reach their threshold to launch a search.
One of the homeowners, Madeleine Higson, also opposed the injunction bid, which would have stopped her and the owner of the other property, Janis Cross, from disturbing the garden.
Barristers for Ms Higson also claimed that she had been subjected to ‘borderline harassment’ and caused ‘significant distress’ by the McKay family, who it was claimed had attempted to gain access to the property through false representations.
A previous dig took place in a farm in Pelham, Hertfordshire, but nothing was found during the search (Picture: Peter MacDiarmid/Shutterstock)
In a ruling on Tuesday, Mr Justice Richard Smith said that while Ms McKay’s kidnap and murder was an ‘abhorrent crime’, his role was to consider the case “objectively and dispassionately”.
He said: ‘The claimants have not established that such relief is needed now, or why the usual pre-trial procedures should not be observed.’
He continued: ‘I was not persuaded that even if a survey was carried out, that it would be conclusive one way or the other, that it would produce incontrovertible data.’
He added: ‘The evidence of the presence of Muriel McKay’s remains at the premises, such as it is presently, seems thin.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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