William Tyrrell: Detectives move to charge missing toddler’s foster mother

Almost a decade on from the boy’s disappearance, detectives believe there is enough evidence to charge William Tyrrell’s foster mother.

NSW Police has recommended the foster mother of William Tyrrell be charged with interfering with a corpse and perverting the course of justice.

A brief handed to the Director of Public Prosecutions by detectives this month is understood to contain evidence against the boy’s foster mum, who can’t be named for legal reasons, The Daily Telegraph reports.

According to the newspaper, investigators believe that William may have died after falling from a balcony at the family’s NSW Mid North Coast home in 2014.

Detectives believe his body was disposed of.

William was reported missing on September 11 and his disappearance was initially treated as a child abduction.

His foster mother has strongly denied any involvement and news.com.au is not suggesting she is guilty.

William Tyrrell went missing almost a decade ago. Picture: Supplied

A charge would likely initiate the start of a court proceeding, and a judge or jury would decide if there was enough evidence for a conviction.

William, who would have turned 12 on Monday, went missing from the small town of Kendall, about 25km southwest of Port Macquarie.

On the morning he vanished, the three-year-old was playing with his sister on the front lawn of the home dressed in his favourite Spider-Man outfit.

His sister was not able to give detectives any information about what happened to William.

No one has ever been charged over William’s disappearance and his body has never been found.

In 2020, a fresh team of homicide detectives reviewed William’s case and searched the property where he was last seen a year later.

They focused on an area below the balcony in the backyard but they also searched gardens and bushland around the house.

Police with cadaver dogs conducted a new search for William Tyrrell at Kendall following new information in November 2021. Picture: Shane Chalker

William was three years old when he went missing. Picture: Supplied / NSW Police

The foster mother has pleaded not guilty to two counts of common assault of another child and last year failed to have the charges dealt with on mental health grounds.

She has also denied two counts of stalking and intimidation.

On what would have been William’s birthday NSW Police released a statement which said: “The determination of strike force detectives has never wavered as they continue to meticulously explore and exhaust every line of inquiry.

“As another of William Tyrrell’s birthdays comes and goes — on what should be a happy occasion — the NSW Police Force continues to actively and vigorously search for answers into his disappearance.”

If the foster mother is charged with perverting the course of justice and interfering with a corpse, she could face 14 years behind bars.

Originally published as William Tyrrell: Detectives move to charge missing toddler’s foster mother