WEBVTT - The Evidence | William Tyrrell: 5 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:03.680 I'm standing in front of the New South Wales Coroner's 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:06.680 Court in Lidcomb in Western Sydney, where in just a 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:10.400 few minutes now the inquest into William's disappearance is about 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:14.280 to start. It's a gray day. You can hear the 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:21.120 traffic roaring past. But for those involved today, all that 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:23.400 movement is going to stop. I can only imagine their 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:25.640 whole world is going to stop, and all that will 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:29.520 matter is what happens in that courtroom inside the building 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:33.640 in front of me. Now, it's four years now since 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.080 the last public hearing in this inquest, and in that 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:42.720 time the police focus has shifted completely onto William's foster mother. 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.919 They've launched an enormous search, literally dug up tons of 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.280 soil from around ben Rooin Drive while William went missing, 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:53.840 and her name has been in the newspapers. She has 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.400 been described in court as having had something to do 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:57.800 with William's disappearance. 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:00.920 Today, I'm in the media that we're going to be 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.640 doing some operational activity in the Kendle area over the 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:08.240 coming weeks. This activity is in response to evidence we've 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.480 obtained in the course of the investigation. It's not speculative 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.920 in any way. We're acting on behalf of the coroner. 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.160 At any conjunction with coronnial orders, she will be kept up. 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:23.360 David, and we do today expect to hear what evidence 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:28.039 the police have or haven't got to justify that level 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.560 of suspicion. Strangely though, we won't be hearing from the 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.800 lead detective David Laidl, or the man who's running the 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:40.959 strikeforce into William's disappearance, because and this is this is 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.920 actually extraordinary, the coroner has refused to call him. The 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.200 Police Commissioner specifically asked that David Laidlor will be called. 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.520 The coroner has refused to do that, but she hasn't 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.440 released her reasons why David Laidlaw's decision to target William's 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.120 foster mother has been very public. The Police Commissioner, Mick 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:03.680 Fuller said this about the strikeforce. 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:06.960 I brought a new team on board under Detective Chief Inspector. 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:12.000 They've laid Law through probably the state's most experienced homicide investigator, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.120 and he pulled together probably one of the best teams 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.760 we've seen and spend an active investigation. And you know, 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:20.080 they had been working through a number of different pieces 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.120 of information and they inherited what was a bit of 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.840 a mess and have really cleaned up that investigation and 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.280 they've got a clear strategy, and. 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.560 The detectives in that strike force have said in court 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:39.320 they believe she knows what happened to William. So the 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.280 question that's in my mind right now is I'm about 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.119 to walk into this inquest, is how can the police 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:49.080 say all that with that kind of confidence? And yet 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.040 today in this hearing we're not going to hear from 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:56.080 the lead detective himself. Are we going to get the 0:02:56.120 --> 0:03:01.240 answers that really, after all these years everyone is hoping 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.880 to receive. I don't know. The only way we're going 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:09.480 to know is by going inside. 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:17.400 Okay, Daniel, Okay. 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.239 So one of the things about courts is you're not 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:23.920 allowed to record inside them. So the only way we 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.400 can actually tell anyone what happened in the inquest today 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:29.920 is just like this, we come out and then you 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.000 and I have this conversation, Nina, because you weren't in court, 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.520 so you don't know what happened. The big thing is 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:42.680 what we haven't got. So there hasn't been a moment 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.400 where anyone has said this is the evidence. The police 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.480 have got to justify what they've been looking at and 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:51.640 the theory they've been following for the past four or 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.320 five years now. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.880 senior lawyer working with the coroner said, it's beyond any 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.800 argument now that we'll material has not been found, and 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:07.000 it's beyond argument that no forensic evidence has been located 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.880 anywhere that provides a clue to his disappearance, So no 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:15.680 forensic evidence. And also it's beyond argument that there is 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:20.480 no eyewitness who's provided an account of how William left 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.920 the area where he was last seen, meaning the police 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.919 have no direct evidence of what happened to him. Okay, 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.839 it means the police can only have a circumstantial case, 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:37.719 which that can still work. You can still prove someone 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.560 has done something with a circumstantial case, but it's harder 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.120 and to do it you also have to prove that 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.279 the other people who might have been involved definitely didn't 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.440 do it. And what's been interesting is that the lead 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.320 lawyer working with the inquest has cited a couple of 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:56.200 the other moments in the long history of this investigation 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.840 where the police have directly accused other people of being 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:05.000 involved in William's disappearance, and the lawyer said that media 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:09.360 reports show the police now believe the foster mothers involved, 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.800 and he says it cannot be overstated that the coroner 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.480 has to act on the basis of reliable evidence. He said, 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:22.359 guesses are not rational. Suspicions form no rational basis for 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:27.400 making findings of fact. So you're kind of reading between 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:31.040 the lines because the way he talks, this guy, Gerard Craddock, 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:33.760 is very loyally. It's kind of scholarly. He kind of 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:38.080 goes around the houses, but listening to what he's saying, 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:43.880 he's saying, there's no evidence and you shouldn't be guessing. 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:48.320 You shouldn't be using your suspicions to make findings, which 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.039 is what the inquest now has to do. 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:54.200 So you reported earlier this morning that David Laidlaw was 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.360 not going to be called as a witness. No, did 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:57.920 they give any indication as to why. 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:03.159 No, nothing, it's been I said that Craddock's kind of 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:07.440 loyally and scholarly. He spent a lot of this morning 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:10.839 talking about all the evidence that has been heard in 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.400 the inquest before now years ago and emphasizing who was 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.160 where and when and detail timings of that morning, and 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.400 how we can be certain of what we know on 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.279 the morning when William went missing, So the time the 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.599 last photo of William was taken, the time a text 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.040 message was sent by William's foster father, at the time 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.719 of the Triple zero Corps, the time of the first 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:37.520 police officer arriving, how different people's Facebook posts can show 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.480 that certain things were happening at certain times and certain 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.320 people were where they said they were, and talking about 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.320 the search that was done that morning. And the more 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:49.320 he went over this, the more I'm starting to think, 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:53.560 why are we going over this? And then I started 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.040 to think, because he's building a case about what we 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.840 can know and what we know we can't no if 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.680 that makes sense. So he talks about the initial search 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.359 for William in the first few days, and he says 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:11.640 that was thorough. He's got no question about whether or 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.600 not that did its very best to find where William was. 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.560 And he talks about the second search in twenty eighteen, 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.520 which he says was intense, and then he talks about 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.960 this third search he mentioned in twenty twenty one, which 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.800 the police launched, and he describes that as another level 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:30.760 of intensity. The police went in with excavators and rakes, 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.360 and they stripped out of vegetation, they used divers. And 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:38.640 the conclusion that the lawyer Gerard Craddock says is no 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.880 evidence was found that relates to William Tyrrell's disappearance. He 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:46.480 says the court may consider and perhaps conclude. And that's 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:50.640 the loyally talking that William under his own stem cannot 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:54.360 have traveled beyond the area searched. And the point he's 0:07:54.400 --> 0:08:00.360 making is therefore someone else must have been involved. One 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.520 thing that among all that kind of long and detailed 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.160 raking over of the evidence we've heard is he talked 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:12.520 about how the neighbors heard a car that morning. They 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:14.720 heard a car on the gravel at the top end 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.160 of Benuin Drive, which is just outside the house where 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:22.920 William was staying. And he says, you can't prove that 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.760 there was a car, but there's definitely evidence of a 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.000 car being there, and no one knows. No one's been 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:30.840 able to prove who drove that car. 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.840 Yeah, Peter and Sharrell crab So I went back and 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.400 looked into that. And so they got home about nine 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:38.920 point thirty in the morning that day, and they both 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.640 testified in twenty nineteen that they heard a car doing 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:44.200 a U turn in the street. They both thought it 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:46.960 sounded like the postman at the time. Yeah, and Charrell 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.280 testified that the car was moving quite fast. But I 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.199 did wonder, because there's been a lot of people testifying 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.920 about cars. I did wonder the significance of the crabs 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.400 in particular. Did he mention why he brought them up. 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.440 He's confident about the cabs evidence because he says one 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:05.800 of the detectives is sitting with Sharrell Krab asking her 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.559 about this, when Sharrell Crab says, oh, can you hear 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:10.880 that car driving up the road, and then a few 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:14.400 seconds later the detective hears it. So he says, despite 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:18.000 the fact that Charrell's quite elderly at that point, she's 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.959 obviously very capable. She is able to hear a car. 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:23.800 So he's got quite a lot of confidence in that. 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.760 So I think all he's doing is establishing there's no 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:31.560 evidence of what happened to William, but there's a possibility 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.800 that this car was involved in whatever did happen. He 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:37.240 hasn't gone any further than that. 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.280 It sounds like he was just making a big focus 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.160 on hard facts that he thinks can be proved versus 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:45.200 theories that can't be. 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.000 Is that the theme, yes, And he talked about how 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:51.200 the inquest came to an end in twenty twenty and 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:54.560 he said the reason it restarted this week this morning, 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.720 he said, is because the police decided to follow up 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.560 a theory. And that's the theory we looked at episode 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:03.720 four that the police believe William may have fallen off 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.839 the balcony, that his foster mother decided not to seek 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.000 help but to dispose of his remains, and she drove 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.520 down the road to the corner of Batar Creek Road 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:14.960 and Cobb and Co Road and disposed of his body there. 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:18.840 But what's really strange is the inquest seems to have 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.080 gone out of its way not to call any of 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.680 the detectives, so no one's been asked to explain why 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.280 the police pursued this theory or why they did the 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:33.160 twenty twenty one search, the enormous search a few years ago. 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.000 What Craddock the lawyer did say is that the detective 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.520 leading that inquiry the one who's not been called to 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.480 give evidence, Detective Chief Inspector David Laidlaw. He says he's 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.400 given a number of statements the most recent one is 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.960 heavily redacted, meaning he's not going to be called to 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.640 give evidence, and his statement has been censored, so we 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:58.600 can't know what he says. Craddock, the lawyer explained that 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.720 saying so simple reason for that is what we wanted 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:07.439 was a straightforward recitation of the investigative steps taken since 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:11.760 twenty twenty, and the statement we've been given deals with 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.600 evidence in the form of one person's opinions about what 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.840 the evidence shows. So what he's saying is the coroner 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.800 asked the lead detective to give us the facts of 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:25.800 what the police have done, and what the lead detective 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.560 has given them is opinions about the evidence. He says, 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.920 it's fine for the lawyers to make submissions so long 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:35.560 as they take into account all of the evidence, not 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.679 of opinions, but a proper fact finding processes. So again, 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:43.360 it's loyally, it's scholarly, it's kind of going around the houses. 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.440 But it is a criticism. 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:47.679 That a sounds like a loyally disc. 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.640 It is a loyally it's a loyally dis and detective 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:54.800 Chief Inspector laid Law sitting in the inquest listening to 0:11:54.880 --> 0:12:07.840 this but not responding saying nothing publicly. We heard one witness, 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.040 a hydrologist who was involved in planning the police search, 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:13.199 and you get a sense of the scale of the search. 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.600 Vegetation was stripped, then they sent in a cadaver dog. 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.720 Then they dug out the soil with rakes or hose 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.200 or use an excavator and they drained the creek. Or 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.640 divers are sent in to do a hand search, and 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.000 they dug out tons of soil and searched each bucket 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.520 full by hand. And this is all around that crossroads 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.160 that you and me went to where the police are 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.440 working on the theory that Williams fostermotherd disposed of his body. 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:42.360 And by establishing the search is so thorough, it underscores 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:47.520 the fact no evidence was found, potentially because there was 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:49.400 no evidence there to find. 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.280 When I saw that John Ollie, the hydrologist, had worked 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.400 on the Daniel Markham case in twenty eleven, I thought 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:58.760 that was quite interesting because it's quite a similar sort 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.760 of search that he did nine years since Daniel went missing. 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.280 And I was reading more about how they did that 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:08.040 search there to excavate five hundred cubic meters of sand 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.200 and remove a huge layer of sediment up to a 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.600 meter deep to find Daniel's body. And you've got to 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:16.440 think that is a case where they actually knew where 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.839 the body was. So I can't imagine how much harder 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:21.480 it will be for the place in this case when 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.960 they're kind of just working on a hypothesis and they 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.640 don't know really how big the area they have to 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:27.320 look at is. 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:30.240 It was vast. We saw a video of the search 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.960 in operation and it is, honestly, it's a lunar landscape. 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.480 They've stripped all the vegetation back and then dug the 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:39.640 earth down to five ten fifteen centimeters. Some place has 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.200 gone deeper, and then they've just dragged that earth out 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.480 and searched through it or sieved through it. But what 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.520 we've not heard, because no one's been asked, is why 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.160 did the police launch that search? What evidence did they 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:57.320 have to support the theory they were pursuing? And I 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.920 guess we don't have to have those answers yet. It's 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.760 only day one of the inquest. 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.400 Do we have an indication of who else is being 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:08.080 called this week? Are we going to stay on the 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:09.280 twenty twenty one search. 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:11.560 Yeah, most of the evidence this week is on the 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:13.800 twenty twenty one search. We're going to hear from some 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:18.160 of the constables who are involved, another expert talking about remains, 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.200 how they can be preserved or they can be lost. 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.400 And one witness who was a truck driver who was 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.800 driving a long Bitar Creek Road. And we know because 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:29.080 it's been in the media, so it's been leaked to 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.720 the media that that truck driver saw William's foster mother 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.800 at that time. We don't know what he says she 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:37.480 was doing. 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.080 In the foster Mother's walk through describing that drive, she 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.200 talks about passing a truck as she drove down to 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:45.160 Patar Creek Road. 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.200 Yeah, he thought I pulled over because he acknowledged me 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.080 by saying thanks for pulling over. But I pulled over 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:51.840 because I've just got my head out the window looking 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:52.600 for William. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:54.840 Do we know if it's that truck driver or is 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:55.600 it We don't know. 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.800 We have to assume it's that truck driver. So at 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:04.200 the moment, we've got no evidence, no explanation of why 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:07.840 police launched this search, and yet it's only day one. 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.600 But there is something that struck me right at the end, 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:13.760 and this might give you an indication of how these 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:17.720 things play out not just in court, but in the 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.640 media and in the politics of this. Right at the end, 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.920 after you know, we've heard all day that the police 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.160 have found nothing, this professor John Ollie is on the stand. 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.600 He's a hydrologist. The police barrister stands up and says, 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.400 after you've finished your work on this, did you consider 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.080 that there might be any other explanation for what happened 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.080 to William? And he says yes. He wrote to another 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:45.040 scientist who was an expert on invasive species of pigs 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:49.320 or fox to ask him if it was possible one 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.240 of those animals had done something to William, And of 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:56.360 course the counselor assistant the coroner, and the coroner shut 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.760 that down and they say, look, we've already established basically 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.520 when not going to hear that evidence, and that also 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:08.080 you're asking a hydrologist about an ecologist's explanation of what happened. 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.960 But by then it's too late. That theory is out there. 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.760 And when I left the media room where the journalists 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.680 have all been working today, everyone is talking about this 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.680 idea that William Tierrell may have been taken by a 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:25.320 fox or a pig. And I bet that the headlines 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:30.080 tomorrow or even later today. The headlines say William Tierrell 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:33.920 could have been taken by a fox and there's no 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.560 evidence for that, but the theory is now out there 0:16:36.560 --> 0:17:02.680 in the wild. So that's day one. Okay. So I 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.119 told you the media would report on the possibility of 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:07.400 wild animals, didn't I? 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:08.000 He did? 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.520 I did, and they did so the Guardian and the 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:14.720 Daily Mail, particularly the Guardian headline is William Tyrell inquest 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:19.040 Police suspect foster mother Berry Toddler after accidental death. And 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:22.400 then the stand first wild dogs may have taken any 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.720 remains of the three year old. Now it does say 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:29.000 no bones or clothing belonging to William were located, but 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:33.600 it doesn't mention that the senior lawyer at the inquest 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:38.359 has specifically said it's beyond argument no forensic evidence was found, 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.880 which I think is a difference in terms of how 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.880 strongly he's put there. And then the Daily Mail headline 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.520 is expert combed through a rubbish dump in the hunt 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:53.240 for William Tibble's body as detectives reveal shocking theory they 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:58.120 believe solves the mystery. I mean that's strong language. And 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.719 the article beneath it it says this expert didn't find 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:08.280 William's remains, but admitted animals could have removed them like 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:12.600 they do with kangaroo carcasses. And again it does say 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.560 police did not believe any trace of William was left there. 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.920 But that's actually quite different to what the lawyer said, 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:23.520 which is it's beyond argument no forensic evidence was found. 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.920 So I asked to speak to both of those reporters 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.080 and asked to interview them both about why they wrote 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.040 it the way they did, just out of interest because 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.040 I would have done it differently, And neither of them 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.280 took me up on the offer of an interview. But 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:40.080 I did speak to the Daily Mail reporter and we 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:44.120 had actually a really nice players and interesting conversation, and 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.280 she was talking about different things. So she's not actually 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:50.399 the one who kind of does the final bulk together 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.080 of her article. It gets updated over the day, so 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.639 she doesn't have final control of things, particularly like headlines. 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:01.840 She's also said she wasn't convinced that what I thought 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.240 was important about the lawyer saying it's beyond argument there's 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:07.560 no forensic evidence. She didn't think that was as important 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.560 as I did, As she said in terms of their audience. 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.840 This question about could animals have moved William's remains was 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:18.359 more interesting because this idea about wild animals has not 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:23.560 been heard before, so it's new, so it's news. I 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:25.960 said to her, Look, I would have written that article 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.320 pretty much the opposite way around, so the top line 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:34.600 is no forensic evidence, no eyewitnesses, and I might not 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.200 even have put in the reference to the wild animals. 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:39.919 And also, you know, the coroner challenged it when it 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.560 was mentioned in court and said, look, you're not the 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:44.760 right person to even give this as evidence because you're 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.480 an expert in hydrology, to which the response was that 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.119 that's because I've spent a lot of time criticizing the 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.640 police theory and that the podcast we're making right now 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:59.639 is all about criticizing the police, which is fair that 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:01.600 there has. It's been a fair bit of criticism of 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:07.600 the police in this podcast. But today in court, the 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.320 police barrister's back on his feet, so the lawyer representing 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.960 the police asking questions again about the effects of wild 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:17.200 animals on human remains. So it is something the police 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:18.440 are interested in. 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:21.359 It's interesting, isn't it. It just shows you how the 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:22.919 media shapes the story. 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:24.960 Absolutely, And we're. 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:28.400 Relying on the media. You know, there's no cameras in court, 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.280 there's no recording, there's a transcript the public have access to. 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.679 We're relying on the media to give us those reports. 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:39.119 Yes, so it's the media who allow the Oh I know, 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:41.479 this isn't rocket science. Everyone knows this, But it's the 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:44.600 media who shaped the how the public understand the story. 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.000 So right across the country, this is how people understand 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.440 not just what happened, but who these people are. And 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:56.000 you suddenly realize just how powerful it's shifting emphasis can be, 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:59.240 and how potentially damaging a shift of emphasis can be. 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.400 I did catch a new story this morning that kind 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:06.240 of highlights that the court opened today with the coroner 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.600 telling people off for abusing the foster mother outside the 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:10.360 court yesterday. 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:13.080 That's a really good point because it's the first thing 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:17.879 we hear is that there was a woman outside the 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:21.080 court yesterday as people were coming out. As William's foster 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.840 mother walks out, this woman outside the court starts yelling 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:44.640 abuse at her style oh wi, but also starts yelling 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:48.840 her name in public, which is obviously protected by these 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:51.919 non publication orders which haven't been put in place to 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:54.879 protect William's foster mother. They've been put in place to 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:59.119 protect other children who are associated with or have some 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:02.399 connection to her. So she started using her name. She 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:06.000 abuses her. The TV cameras are rolling because they're all 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.920 there to get that footage of William's foster mother leaving court. 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:13.120 But then the coroner says this morning, how she's disappointed 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:17.280 and this must not occur. But it struck me this 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:19.080 is one of the problems with courts is they haven't 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:22.480 kept up with the technology. You've got all this technology 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:25.920 in now with social media where people are spreading facts 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:30.920 and lies as well outside of the court, including all 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:36.000 this stuff that people think or suspect or speculating about 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.119 the people involved in this case. It's all getting spread, 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:41.760 but it's trickling into the real world. It's having real 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:44.720 world effects on the real people involved. But what we 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:49.080 did see today was ours more evidence about the search. 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:52.760 You know the search. It was big, it was thorough, 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:55.679 and there's no evidence has been found to support the 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:58.280 police theories. But the problem is that a lack of 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.919 evidence doesn't prove that William's body wasn't there, which is 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:05.280 where these wild animals come in. If the wild animals 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:08.679 could have taken William's body, then it might still be 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:11.439 that the police theory is possible that this kind of 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:15.680 hypothetical situation where William falls off the balcony, his foster 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:18.320 mother discovers him, doesn't call for help, and decides to 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:22.040 dispose of his body, is still possible because possibly a 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:24.239 wild animal took his corpse, and that's why there's no 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:29.720 forensic evidence despite years and years of searching. The coroner 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:32.720