Andrew Frederick, 47, was found dead in a ransacked property in Grenada on 4 January. A local autopsy conducted that week found blunt force trauma, evidence of torture including toenail removal, and ruled the death a homicide. Grenadian police investigated, concluded there was "no basis … that any homicide has occurred," and closed the case. A former Scotland Yard homicide commander supporting the family called the decision "incredible" — a qualified medical examiner's findings simply discarded because they didn't fit the police's model. The family spent months campaigning to get British authorities involved. Frederick's body was repatriated to the UK in August — six weeks after his death, his remains had been held under Grenadian authority. When a second autopsy was performed in the UK, parts of his neck and all of his organs — brain, heart, lungs — were missing. No one has told the family where those organs are, what happened to them, or why they were never informed. Last month a UK coroner asked the Metropolitan Police to conduct an investigation. A British high commissioner raised the case at the highest levels of Grenadian government. Grenada verbally agreed to cooperate with any formal UK request for assistance. That formal request was sent weeks ago. It remains unsigned. Every day the delay compounds: evidence degrades, witnesses scatter, crime scenes lose integrity. The former homicide commander described this as a textbook failure of the "golden hours" — the first 24 hours after a homicide discovery when evidence preservation is most critical. The Murdered Abroad charity, which supports families of British citizens killed overseas, has called on the foreign affairs select committee to intervene. Its founder, Eve Henderson, framed the case as a systemic indictment: if a family this determined cannot get the FCDO to deploy its diplomatic powers effectively, the 60 to 80 families bereaved by murder abroad each year have little hope. The FCDO's response — "We are supporting the family of a British man who died in Grenada, and are in contact with the local authorities" — is the diplomatic equivalent of an out-of-office reply. The structural failure here runs in two directions. Grenada's police dismissed a pathologist's homicide ruling, failed to preserve the crime scene, and presided over a chain of custody in which a dead man's organs vanished without explanation. The UK's consular machinery, meanwhile, took months to escalate, months to repatriate a body, and is now stuck waiting for a signature on a cooperation agreement that Grenada already verbally endorsed. Neither system is designed to protect victims who fall into the gap between jurisdictions. The family's appeal is now directed at Grenada's prime minister, who also serves as minister of national security. They are asking for a signature. The diplomatic architecture exists; the request has been made; the agreement was verbal. What's missing is political will on one side and diplomatic pressure on the other. Frederick's family has been fighting for nearly ten months not for closure, but for the investigation that should have started on day one.
