The identity of a man who confessed to abducting a toddler from a beach and murdering her more than 55 years ago has been revealed in a bombshell dropped by a maverick MP.

Under privilege in the NSW Parliament, Legalise Cannabis party MP Jeremy Buckingham revealed the name of the key suspect, who has the pseudonym "Mercury".

He was accused of abducting and murdering three-year-old Cheryl Gene Grimmer in January 1970 from Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong, south of Sydney.

Cheryl was enjoying a day at the beach with her mother and three brothers when she vanished.

The man's name remains suppressed by the courts, a fact Mr Buckingham was warned about moments before he read a signed transcript of a 1971 police confession into Hansard.

Choking back tears at times, the MP read out the then-

See Full Page