Speaker 1: Here we are surprise there is no inquest, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that we told people at the end of the
Speaker 1: last episode that there was going to be an inquest,
Speaker 1: and we may have suggested that the inquest was going
Speaker 1: to answer some of the questions outstanding about what happened
Speaker 1: to William Tyrrel and everything that's been done in the
Speaker 1: ten years since. The big news is that actually that's
Speaker 1: not happening because I found out on Tuesday, and all
Speaker 1: credit to the person who gave us this tip, who
Speaker 1: didn't have to and shall remain nameless, the inquest isn't
Speaker 1: going ahead because and I can this is what the
Speaker 1: Coroner's Court have sent me. I can now confirm that
Speaker 1: the coroner has closed the evidence in this inquest and
Speaker 1: vacated the hearing dates, a timetable for written submissions has
Speaker 1: been set down, and a date for the delivery of
Speaker 1: Her Honor's findings as the coroner has not yet been fixed.
Speaker 1: So what we're going to do in this episode is
Speaker 1: instead of saying here's what's going to come in the inquest,
Speaker 1: this week, we're going to talk about what this decision
Speaker 1: means and what the inquest is going to look at
Speaker 1: and what it now will not look at and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about what this podcast will do next
Speaker 1: because we're not finished, are we far from it?
Speaker 2: And for the.
Speaker 1: First time in this episode, we're going to give the
Speaker 1: perspective of the police from the man who actually led
Speaker 1: the force for years during the most controversial period of
Speaker 1: the William Tiole investigation. And I'm pleased because the police
Speaker 1: haven't been talking to us during this podcast series, and
Speaker 1: that's you know, they've got a reason to, which is
Speaker 1: that they don't want to say anything while the inquest
Speaker 1: is ongoing. And they've probably also got a reason to
Speaker 1: which is that we have criticized them. And it's good
Speaker 1: that we're going to be able to hear from them,
Speaker 1: get their perspective, particularly from the person who was in charge.
Speaker 1: So that's what we're going to do in this episode.
Speaker 1: I'm Dan Box, I'm Nina Young and from news dot
Speaker 1: com dot Au. This is Witness William Tyrrell Episode eleven.
Speaker 1: What now?
Speaker 3: Okay, So Dankrona has closed evidence yeap and is asking
Speaker 3: for written submissions. Yeah, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: Well, so this is interesting. So closing the evidence means
Speaker 1: she's not going to hear anything else in open court,
Speaker 1: she's only going to make her decisions based on what
Speaker 1: she's heard up to this point. Written submissions is basically well,
Speaker 1: all the lawyers involve representing all the different parties, So
Speaker 1: the police, biological family, foster family, the state government are
Speaker 1: in there, some persons of interest I imagine Frank Abbott
Speaker 1: who is an interested person and gets to represent himself.
Speaker 1: They get the opportunity to essentially make an argument, and
Speaker 1: for the first time they're not dealing in facts, they
Speaker 1: were able to say, this is our opinion of what
Speaker 1: you the coroner should find right. But again, and this
Speaker 1: goes back for me to one of the things I
Speaker 1: struggle with with this inquest. Written submissions means everything's written
Speaker 1: down and sent to the coroner. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's going to be made public. It's not going to
Speaker 1: be heard in open court. I've written to the court
Speaker 1: and said will those be made public? And I haven't
Speaker 1: heard back yet. So everything is kind of being done
Speaker 1: at this point behind closed doors. Yeah, And the problem
Speaker 1: with that is you have to trust that everything is
Speaker 1: being done properly. It's not held up to the light
Speaker 1: to examine it.
Speaker 3: So at this point it seems like we're not going
Speaker 3: to hear anything from the police investigation from the last
Speaker 3: four years in the court in public.
Speaker 1: That is that is actually a big deal, and it's
Speaker 1: the thing that so when I got this news that
Speaker 1: tip from that person who shall remain nameless. And also
Speaker 1: I should say we've had a lot of tips, and
Speaker 1: this podcast is better because people have been getting in
Speaker 1: touch and have been sending us tips and things to
Speaker 1: follow up and things to chase. And we probably should
Speaker 1: at some point come back and actually say thank you
Speaker 1: to people and tell them the tips that have come
Speaker 1: in and how we followed them up. And we will
Speaker 1: do that, but not right now, because you asked me
Speaker 1: a question. You asked me essentially, what will happen to
Speaker 1: all the work that the police have done over the
Speaker 1: past four years. It took me a day or two
Speaker 1: to really process this when I got that tip. What
Speaker 1: the decision by the coroner means is before this year,
Speaker 1: we thought the inquest had finished once before, back in
Speaker 1: October twenty twenty, and at that point the coroner said
Speaker 1: she was going to hand down her findings, so she
Speaker 1: was basically saying the work is done. But just before that,
Speaker 1: the police had made a decision to focus on the
Speaker 1: foster mother as a possible suspect, and since then they've
Speaker 1: spent four years working on that investigation, had those massive
Speaker 1: forensic search at Kendall for four weeks. Yeah, They've seized
Speaker 1: the car, the foster grandmother's car. We've had media leaks,
Speaker 1: we've had pressure tactics, a child has been taken away
Speaker 1: from the foster parents. All of that has happened. But
Speaker 1: now the coroner is saying she doesn't want to hear
Speaker 1: from the police, so she's refused to call David Laidlaw,
Speaker 1: the lead detective, to give evidence at the inquest, and
Speaker 1: she's now closed the evidence. And I think that means
Speaker 1: that the coronial team don't think those four years have
Speaker 1: produced anything that shows what's happened to William. I mean
Speaker 1: the inquest has heard, you know, from the lead lawyer.
Speaker 1: He said, it's beyond argument that no forensic evidence has
Speaker 1: been located that provides a clue to his disappearance. And
Speaker 1: it's beyond argument that there's no eyewitness who's provided any
Speaker 1: account of how William left the house where he was
Speaker 1: reported missing. So four years of police work looking at
Speaker 1: one particular suspect and the coroners basically said she's not impressed.
Speaker 3: Do you think that means that she won't be considering
Speaker 3: a lot of that evidence.
Speaker 1: I think she has to consider it.
Speaker 3: What does she have to consider what she allowed to
Speaker 3: be shown in the court.
Speaker 1: She has to consider everything that is tendered in evidence.
Speaker 1: But the fact that she doesn't want to hear him
Speaker 1: answer any questions about it, including you know, why they
Speaker 1: pursued that investigation, why they looked at William's foster mother,
Speaker 1: what basis they had for that. She doesn't want to
Speaker 1: interrogate that at all. She doesn't want the details in
Speaker 1: his statement to become part of the public record. That
Speaker 1: suggests she's not impressed that they have cracked the case,
Speaker 1: and that means you've got to ask have the police
Speaker 1: been looking in the right direction for four years? And
Speaker 1: if they haven't, then have they missed the opportunity to
Speaker 1: look at someone else.
Speaker 3: We said at the start of the series that an
Speaker 3: inquest is not a criminal trial. It's not trying to
Speaker 3: find who's responsible. It is trying to find out the
Speaker 3: cause of a death, or if there was a death
Speaker 3: at all. What do you think this inquest will find?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 1: I think it's inevitable now that the inquest is going
Speaker 1: to come back with an open finding, And an open
Speaker 1: finding is basically where the inquest comes back and says,
Speaker 1: we don't know, or.
Speaker 3: On the basis of probability, William died on the twelfth
Speaker 3: of September. Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 1: I think that is quite likely the colonel will come
Speaker 1: back and say that, on the basis the available evidence William.
Speaker 1: I hate saying this, and I apologize to those people
Speaker 1: who might listen and find this confronting on William. I
Speaker 1: think the coroner will probably come back and say, on
Speaker 1: the basis the available evidence, William is dead. But then
Speaker 1: I think on the basis of the evidence that the
Speaker 1: coroner's got, I don't think they can say how he died,
Speaker 1: who was involved, what happened. So they're going to come
Speaker 1: back with what is normally called an open finding, which
Speaker 1: means basically, we don't know. And the thing is normally
Speaker 1: in those cases and I've seen this happen. The coroner
Speaker 1: will then refer the case back to the police Unsolved
Speaker 1: Homicide Team for reinvestigation. But here David Laidlaw, the man
Speaker 1: who's been leading the investigation, is in the unsolved Homicide Team.
Speaker 1: He's one of their leaders, and others on the strike
Speaker 1: force are in the Unsolved Homicide Team. So if the
Speaker 1: coroner refers it back to unsolved, she's referring it back
Speaker 1: to the same people who've been the same people who've
Speaker 1: been investigating it and who she is now saying I
Speaker 1: don't want to hear from. As well as all the
Speaker 1: other things we talked about earlier in this series about
Speaker 1: the Unsolved Homicide Team in terms of delays, I mean
Speaker 1: massive delays, backlogs of hundreds of cases they haven't looked at,
Speaker 1: missing evidence, unopened cases, nineteen cases unsolved homicides sitting on
Speaker 1: David Laidlaw's desk for a year that he didn't look at.
Speaker 1: So if the coroner refers it back to that team,
Speaker 1: I don't know where this goes next, and I don't
Speaker 1: know if that would be the right decision, but I
Speaker 1: think that is what the inquest will find. Okay.
Speaker 3: So we were hoping, and this is probably a bit
Speaker 3: of a false hope, we were hoping that they'd be,
Speaker 3: you know, this last week of the inquest, and that
Speaker 3: was going to tie all the question we have up
Speaker 3: in a nice bow. That's probably never going to happen.
Speaker 1: You know a number of people who've said that to
Speaker 1: me in the past couple of days since we broke
Speaker 1: the news on news dot com do AU that the
Speaker 1: inquest now wasn't going ahead. It's effectively just been stopped.
Speaker 1: The number of people have said, but we were waiting
Speaker 1: to hear the answers, or but it was supposed to
Speaker 1: resolve this, and in fairness it was that's what those
Speaker 1: processes are set up to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was probably a false hope, but
Speaker 3: everyone has that hope. You want, you want the inquest
Speaker 3: to come to the end, give you all those answers,
Speaker 3: and everyone goes, ah, finally that makes sense. We're not
Speaker 3: going to get those answers. It looks like, no, what
Speaker 3: questions do you still have?
Speaker 1: Well, I think the interesting thing now is what the
Speaker 1: inquest won't talk about. And I think one of the
Speaker 1: key things that the inquest is not going to talk
Speaker 1: about is the police investigation itself, because the coroner has
Speaker 1: said that she is not investigating the police investigation, and
Speaker 1: that's been born out by her actions. The coroner has
Speaker 1: chosen not to call There's been three lead detectives on
Speaker 1: this case over the last ten years. The Coroner's chosen
Speaker 1: not to call two of them, hands her up and
Speaker 1: Gary Jubilin to give evidence at all, and David laidlaw
Speaker 1: the thirds of those lead detectives. The police actually asked
Speaker 1: that he give evidence of the most recent hearing and
Speaker 1: the coroner refused it. And the coroner isn't looking at
Speaker 1: why the police have done what they've done or how
Speaker 1: they've done what they've done. And that's fine if you
Speaker 1: assume the police have done a good job, But if
Speaker 1: you're trying to find out what happened to a missing child,
Speaker 1: I think you actually have to ask if the police
Speaker 1: did a good job, and if not, what went wrong,
Speaker 1: what's missing, because asking those questions is how you start
Speaker 1: to stop this happening again, And maybe asking those questions
Speaker 1: is how you start putting right this investigation. The quest
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to.
Speaker 3: Ask that, and I think if we examine what's happened
Speaker 3: in the last four years, you're going to find some faults.
Speaker 1: But that's the thing. If the inquest doesn't look at
Speaker 1: the last four years, then no one is going to
Speaker 1: examine what the police have done in that time. The
Speaker 1: other thing I think the inquest is not going to
Speaker 1: talk about is the care system itself. So this is
Speaker 1: the system that William Tirel wass a foster child, which
Speaker 1: means the state government has parental responsibility for him and
Speaker 1: what happens to him. So that's the same state government
Speaker 1: department that threatened journalists with prison if we revealed the
Speaker 1: fact that he was a foster child at the start.
Speaker 1: It's the same state government department that went to court
Speaker 1: fighting to keep that fact hidden. And when you do
Speaker 1: look at that system, it's overloaded. Last year there were
Speaker 1: reports that over one hundred vulnerable kids and young people
Speaker 1: were living in an emergency accommodation such as hotels, motels
Speaker 1: and car parks because there's such a shortage of foster cares.
Speaker 1: The Department of Communities and Justice, which is the relevant department,
Speaker 1: estimates that they need an extra six hundred foster cares
Speaker 1: each year to catch up with the backlog. There's about
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand children on the New South Wales Child Protection Register,
Speaker 1: So fifteen thousand kids like William, is that system looking
Speaker 1: after them? No, the system's not working, okay. So there's
Speaker 1: been reports in the last year that there are over
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand reports that one of those kids is
Speaker 1: at risk of significant harm in roughly the year from
Speaker 1: twenty two to twenty twenty three, but just one in
Speaker 1: four of those is actually seen within a month.
Speaker 3: That's really scary.
Speaker 1: That's really scary. That's one hundred thousand kids or more
Speaker 1: at risk of harm and only one in four is
Speaker 1: seen by the government department within a month. And the
Speaker 1: very worst performing area was the mid North Coast and
Speaker 1: New South Wales, which is where William went missing. Now
Speaker 1: maybe that's a coincidence, but that's something that like surely
Speaker 1: that bears examination. I'm not saying William was one of
Speaker 1: those kids, but they are kids just like he was,
Speaker 1: and they need protecting. And I don't think the inquest
Speaker 1: is going to look at that system at all. There's
Speaker 1: one other thing I don't think the inquest will talk about.
Speaker 1: I don't think the inquest will look at itself if
Speaker 1: I'd be amazed. And I say that as a cynical
Speaker 1: crime reporter who's seen a few of.
Speaker 3: These, it's an unusual inquest.
Speaker 2: It's complete.
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like that, and I've spoken to
Speaker 1: multiple homicide detectives who've done this stuff. For years and
Speaker 1: have never seen anything like this the way it's played out.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at so he got We mentioned the
Speaker 1: decision not to call hands up and Gary Jubilin, who
Speaker 1: were the lead detectives. The inquest isn't going to question
Speaker 1: that decision because they made that decision. The Inquest isn't
Speaker 1: going to question whether possibly the coronial team was led
Speaker 1: too closely by the police that came in after Gary's
Speaker 1: career sort of flamed out, and who didn't really want
Speaker 1: anything to do with Gary or what he was looking
Speaker 1: at because of all that fallout, and the inquest probably
Speaker 1: and I might be wrong, and if I am wrong,
Speaker 1: then all credit to them. The Inquest isn't probably going
Speaker 1: to question whether it made sense to have the police
Speaker 1: investigation after Gary left, which was looking particularly at Frank Abbott,
Speaker 1: who now has a conviction for child sex offenses. The
Speaker 1: inquest isn't going to look at whether it made sense
Speaker 1: for them to be investigating that at the same time
Speaker 1: the police are investigating him, which meant that evidence gathered
Speaker 1: by the police was sent to Frank Abbott in his
Speaker 1: jail cell for him to read. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if the inquest is going to public ask itself why
Speaker 1: they never asked Frank Abbot to give any evidence, because
Speaker 1: after everything we heard about people telling the inquest that
Speaker 1: he'd said he knew where William Toole was buried, that
Speaker 1: he had a history of frankly disturbing behavior and allegedly
Speaker 1: violent behavior. After all of that.
Speaker 3: And a deathbed confession from a best friend.
Speaker 1: From a best friend which seemed to suggest that Frank
Speaker 1: Abbot had a connection to that friend and may have
Speaker 1: been in a car that drove somebody who matched William's
Speaker 1: description north on the day he went missing, none of
Speaker 1: that was actually followed up by asking Frank Abbot any
Speaker 1: questions about it. Yeah, I don't think the inquest is
Speaker 1: going to ask itself whether that was the right decision,
Speaker 1: And I don't think the coroner is necessarily gonna, in
Speaker 1: her findings, is going to ask herself the question whether
Speaker 1: the inquest could have done more to guide or rein
Speaker 1: in the police in the past four years, now that
Speaker 1: we know they've spent those four years looking at Williams
Speaker 1: Foster Mum, and yet we're not going to hear from
Speaker 1: the lead detective about what they were doing or why
Speaker 1: they were doing it. None of that has been asked,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if we're going to hear why
Speaker 1: that wasn't asked.
Speaker 3: So we have been asking these questions, we've been doing
Speaker 3: our best to try and answer them. But we are
Speaker 3: just a podcast, right So who do you think is
Speaker 3: the best person to ask these questions answer them.
Speaker 1: I'd love to say it was you and me, but
Speaker 1: we're not. We're We're two reporters sitting in a podcast
Speaker 1: studio in Sydney, and we don't have the resources or
Speaker 1: the expertise to do this work. I think we need
Speaker 1: a public inquiry, and I know Alana Smith, who in
Speaker 1: the last episode accused me of contractual shit fuckery, will
Speaker 1: be pleased to hear that because that's what she thinks,
Speaker 1: and she thinks that we should be calling for it.
Speaker 1: But it's also the one thing that everyone agrees on.
Speaker 1: Both William's biological family and his foster family. Bill Spedding,
Speaker 1: who was the first suspect held up by the police,
Speaker 1: Gary Juberlin, who led the investigation for several years, they
Speaker 1: all have said to us that they think there should
Speaker 1: be a public inquiry. And the thing with a public
Speaker 1: inquiry is it's got powers to investigate the police. It's
Speaker 1: got powers to seize documents. It's run by people who are,
Speaker 1: with the greatest respect to you and me, much smarter
Speaker 1: and know what they're doing with this thing. No, definitely,
Speaker 1: I've seen them work. I mean, look, I say, in
Speaker 1: this case, we've talked about the Unsolved Homicide Team. Most
Speaker 1: of the evidence that we've talked about there about the
Speaker 1: flaws in how that has run in the past. Massive
Speaker 1: flaws came from a special Commission of inquiry into the
Speaker 1: police's handling of hate crimes against LGBTQI people. That inquiry
Speaker 1: was phenomenally well run. It was aggressive, It searched out
Speaker 1: the truth. It actually solved unsolved homicides while it was
Speaker 1: doing its job that the police hadn't. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: something with that kind of power and ability to uncover
Speaker 1: what happened looking at this case, looking at how it's
Speaker 1: been handled by the state government, by the police, maybe
Speaker 1: even by the media, and calling all of them to
Speaker 1: account and also saying, you know what, maybe this is
Speaker 1: what you missed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this it needs sunlight.
Speaker 1: All reporters say that everything needs sunlight.
Speaker 3: But this does. If you're going to be publicly accusing people,
Speaker 3: which they've done effectively, effectively effectively multiple times.
Speaker 1: Well, no, publicly they have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you're going to be publicly accusing people,
Speaker 3: you can't just walk away from that and leave those
Speaker 3: people with their lives destroyed, like you have to answer
Speaker 3: those questions publicly.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, So this is something the coroner is going
Speaker 1: to have to grapple with, is those people who have
Speaker 1: been accused did they do it? So you've got okay,
Speaker 1: so just the ones that have been identified. He got
Speaker 1: Paul Savage, the neighbor who doesn't have any real alibi
Speaker 1: for what he was doing at the time William went missing.
Speaker 1: You've got Frank Abbott, who's now been convicted child sex offenses.
Speaker 1: You've got a person who we actually haven't mentioned in
Speaker 1: this podcast, but we have in some of the news
Speaker 1: reporting on news dot com dot au who I'm not
Speaker 1: going to name, but the police called him Gorillas in
Speaker 1: the mist. That was their nickname for him. He lived
Speaker 1: very close to where William went missing, and he had
Speaker 1: a montage of photos at the end of his bed
Speaker 1: which included photos of William. You've got Tony Jones, who
Speaker 1: both has no alibi and now has a child sex conviction,
Speaker 1: and you've got other local pedophiles or sex offenders, all
Speaker 1: of whom have been publicly identified over the past decade
Speaker 1: as people the police are looking at, and the coroner
Speaker 1: is going to have to look at that, and she's
Speaker 1: going to have to say something.
Speaker 3: So there was a time when it seemed outwardly to
Speaker 3: the public that they were about to solve this case.
Speaker 1: That the police were about to solve them. There was
Speaker 1: and most people believed it, and in fact I believed it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I remember seeing that story that broke front page
Speaker 1: of the Daily Telegraph September twenty twenty one, saying the
Speaker 1: police had a new suspect and they were confident they
Speaker 1: were going to crack the case, and that new suspect
Speaker 1: was William's foster mother. I remember reading that and thinking
Speaker 1: the police must have really good evidence to be saying
Speaker 1: that publicly.
Speaker 3: And in such a strong way.
Speaker 1: It's such a strong way and to give you some
Speaker 1: context to that. So that article came out and then
Speaker 1: the next month, October twenty twenty one, the foster mother
Speaker 1: was told she's going to face questions of the Crime Commission,
Speaker 1: which is the secretive, powerful body. You can't tell anyone,
Speaker 1: you've got to be questioned there. And then about a
Speaker 1: week after that, Ben Fordham, who's the radio host on
Speaker 1: one of Sydney's biggest radio stations, two GB.
Speaker 4: Ben said this, it's now been more than seven years
Speaker 4: since the disappearance of William Tyrell. But I can tell
Speaker 4: you this, New South Wales Police believe they will crack
Speaker 4: this case. They don't say that lightly. I've had discussions
Speaker 4: with members of the New South Wales Police Force. They
Speaker 4: believe the mystery of William Tyrell will be solved.
Speaker 1: Then a few days after Ben said that, the police
Speaker 1: sees the gray Masda III that Williams foster grandmother owned
Speaker 1: and Williams foster mum drove the morning he went missing.
Speaker 1: A couple of days after that, Williams foster mother is
Speaker 1: questioned at the Crime Commission in secret and a child
Speaker 1: is taken from her. Day after that, the police seek
Speaker 1: an apprehended violence order preventing Williams foster parents having any
Speaker 1: contact with that child, who we can't identify. And a
Speaker 1: few days after that the police launch this massive search
Speaker 1: in Kendall. It's on every TV news bulletin, it's in
Speaker 1: every newspaper. They literally dig up tons and tons of
Speaker 1: earth and civet. That's the detail the cops go into.
Speaker 1: And I remember at the time this very senior cop,
Speaker 1: Detective Chief Superintendent Darren Bennett. He says there's hundreds of
Speaker 1: officers involved in that search, and he says the searches
Speaker 1: are in response to evidence we have obtained in the
Speaker 1: course of the investigation, not speculative in any way. So
Speaker 1: he's saying they've got evidence, that's what they're acting on.
Speaker 1: And he says it's highly likely that if we found something,
Speaker 1: it would be a body.
Speaker 3: I remember that and I remember thinking, they're about to
Speaker 3: find the body.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, because he's just told you we've got evidence,
Speaker 1: we're about to find a body. And then the day
Speaker 1: after that, there's another article in the Daily Telegraph and
Speaker 1: all credit to the Daily Telegraph. If you want to
Speaker 1: know about crime in New South Wales, it's the place
Speaker 1: to read. It's this article that says inside the police
Speaker 1: thinking on the case. So at this point we know
Speaker 1: the police are looking at the foster mum, but we
Speaker 1: don't know why. But this article starts talking about inconsistencies
Speaker 1: in her evidence, and by now it's widely being reported
Speaker 1: in the media that the police are looking at whether
Speaker 1: William fell from the balcony in his house and his
Speaker 1: foster mum dispose of his body. So that's out there.
Speaker 1: All of this has happened in a few weeks and
Speaker 1: it's being reported the police are considering common assault charges.
Speaker 1: And then on two GB Ben Fordham is talking to
Speaker 1: the Police Commissioner.
Speaker 4: The new South Wales Police Commissioner, Mick Fuller is on
Speaker 4: the line. Commissioner, good morning to you, Good morning Ben,
Speaker 4: this is a big development.
Speaker 2: Well then, we've.
Speaker 5: Never given up on finding what happened to William Tyrell,
Speaker 5: and I've said that from day one when I started
Speaker 5: as the commissioner, and I brought a new team on
Speaker 5: board under Detective Chief Inspector Dave laid Law through probably
Speaker 5: the state's experienced homicide investigator, and he pulled together probably
Speaker 5: one of the best teams we've seen and they inherited
Speaker 5: what was a bit of a mess and have really
Speaker 5: cleaned up that investigation and they've got a clear strategy
Speaker 5: all right, just on.
Speaker 4: The foster parents. Some of the areas that you're searching
Speaker 4: are less than one kilometer from the house on Benaron
Speaker 4: d where William vanished. Can I ask why you haven't
Speaker 4: searched these areas before?
Speaker 5: Well, the areas have been searched, Ben, But if you
Speaker 5: can imagine initially we're searching for a missing ball and
Speaker 5: that search area expanded, then you know, I suppose that
Speaker 5: the transition of the investigation was looking at some persons
Speaker 5: of interest that were clearly not and I think sometime
Speaker 5: was wasted on that in bush Land as overgrowing, and
Speaker 5: so a frushet of eyes under the new team, under
Speaker 5: Detective Cheap inspector laid Law, and you know they've been
Speaker 5: particulously pulling apart this matter.
Speaker 4: How many suspects have you narrowed the investigation down to?
Speaker 5: You know, my understanding is from the investigators is that
Speaker 5: there is certainly one person in particular that we are
Speaker 5: looking closely at.
Speaker 4: Commissioner, let me ask you lastly on this, how confident
Speaker 4: are you about the suspect that your detectives have in mind?
Speaker 5: Look, I'll say this, Ben, confident that the team who
Speaker 5: has the investigation at the moment, I'm confident they can
Speaker 5: solve it. I truly believe that, and I have from
Speaker 5: the start, and I would ask if people continue to
Speaker 5: be patient and just trust in the offices that are
Speaker 5: currently investigating the matter, that they are the best.
Speaker 1: So in that interview on TGB, Mick Fuller, the police Commissioner,
Speaker 1: gives the investigation his full support. He talks about how
Speaker 1: previously and he means under Gary Jubilin the investigation was
Speaker 1: a mess and that it wasted time looking at the
Speaker 1: wrong people. And I know from speaking to Gary he
Speaker 1: furiously disagrees with that. Mick Fuller, the Commissioner also says
Speaker 1: that the new lead detective Gary's replacement, David Laidlaw, is
Speaker 1: one of the most experienced homicide investigators in the state
Speaker 1: and his team is the best. And he says they
Speaker 1: now have one suspect and he's confident they can solve it,
Speaker 1: and he asks people to trust the police. So, Mick Fuller,
Speaker 1: he oversaw this case four years he's now left the police,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to ask him how he felt about
Speaker 1: it now. And I also wanted to talk to him
Speaker 1: because we have spent a good part of this series
Speaker 1: criticizing the police, hopefully fairly, but we have said this
Speaker 1: went wrong, that went wrong, this could have been done better.
Speaker 1: And I know that that's easy for us when we
Speaker 1: don't know what it's like to be in their position.
Speaker 1: So I asked Mick Fuller about that. And bear in
Speaker 1: mind this interview was actually recorded a few days ago,
Speaker 1: before we knew that the inquest was done. It wasn't
Speaker 1: coming back. So the first thing I asked Mick was
Speaker 1: how he looked back on his time in the police force.
Speaker 6: The sense of purpose that you get helping people. It's
Speaker 6: very difficult to get that feeling in other walks of life.
Speaker 6: So I always found on one hand the rewarding nature
Speaker 6: of helping people, and then on the other hand it
Speaker 6: was it's such a great team environment, and you know,
Speaker 6: you meet some amazing people and have some unbelievable experiences.
Speaker 6: So I think, you know, certainly that sense of purpose
Speaker 6: for mine is something that you know, I miss.
Speaker 1: Why did you actually join the police in the first place?
Speaker 6: Could you go back to nineteen eighty seven and there
Speaker 6: was a huge recruitment campaign and there were lots of ads,
Speaker 6: and I thought to myself, it looked like a job
Speaker 6: that would be rewarding and lots of funs. So yeah,
Speaker 6: I threw in for that with thousands of other young people,
Speaker 6: and you know, really, once I joined, I never looked back.
Speaker 1: When William went missing, Mick was working as a senior
Speaker 1: officer in the police force, but he didn't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with the case itself, so his first experience
Speaker 1: of William's disappearance was watching the news on TV like
Speaker 1: most people. I asked if he was briefed on the
Speaker 1: William Twole investigation when Mick was promoted and took over
Speaker 1: the police force in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 6: No, it certainly wasn't in the handover and it's not
Speaker 6: that obviously he's not.
Speaker 2: An important case.
Speaker 6: But if you keep in mind that when I retired
Speaker 6: in early twenty two, there were over four hundred and
Speaker 6: forty active cold cases suspected homicides dan, so you know,
Speaker 6: this is certainly the most high profile case. You know,
Speaker 6: there are lots of other families hoping and praying for
Speaker 6: answers as well.
Speaker 1: And did you feel that responsibility as commissioner.
Speaker 6: Oh, definitely, you definitely did, because you were meeting people,
Speaker 6: you know, as a request from government. You were meeting
Speaker 6: people at events. You know, you would speak regularly at
Speaker 6: rotary dinners and you would bump into people, so it
Speaker 6: was always front of mind because you were constantly out
Speaker 6: in the community do you remember.
Speaker 1: When maybe the first time the case did come across
Speaker 1: your desk.
Speaker 6: I certainly remember the issues towards the end of Gary
Speaker 6: Jubilant's time with the case. You know, it was a
Speaker 6: complex time for the investigation. It was a complex time
Speaker 6: for Gary. But when things that are making the front
Speaker 6: page of the paper or the lead stories, as the commissioner,
Speaker 6: you need to have some understanding of where it's at
Speaker 6: because the media are going to ask questions about the
Speaker 6: investigation and have we let William yrel down.
Speaker 1: You're talking about the end of Gary's time as the
Speaker 1: lead detective, the decision to remove him. It wasn't actually yours.
Speaker 1: It was made by Mick Willing, who was acting as
Speaker 1: your delegate. But it was kind of made in your name,
Speaker 1: so I imagine you would have been briefed on it
Speaker 1: at the very least.
Speaker 6: Of course, But as a commissioner of Police, you can't
Speaker 6: possibly get involved in the in the minutia. You know,
Speaker 6: you've gotten in superintendent's chief superintendent, you've got assist commissioner
Speaker 6: and a deputy commissioner before any of that would.
Speaker 2: Get to me.
Speaker 1: But you would have supported the decision made by your subordinate.
Speaker 6: No of course, of course, and and uh and and
Speaker 6: not just because of what unfolded around behaviors. And you know,
Speaker 6: I'll call it noble course corruption. But if you talk
Speaker 6: to victims groups, then they're they're often frustrated from lack
Speaker 6: of progress, which is not always the case, but they
Speaker 6: will tell you that a fresh set of eyes on
Speaker 6: conflicts and solved particularly homicide, is the best being for
Speaker 6: the case.
Speaker 1: Can I just go back to the one thing you
Speaker 1: said there? You mentioned noble cause corruption, which you and
Speaker 1: I both know that phrase kind of echoes back to
Speaker 1: the wood World Commission into New South Wales police corruption
Speaker 1: and this idea that police officers at the time were
Speaker 1: giving the green light to criminals as a way, at
Speaker 1: least in their minds or in their justification of doing
Speaker 1: the greater good, and that was the noble cause to
Speaker 1: their corruption. But why use it in this context?
Speaker 6: The noble cause corruption is for mine, is more linked
Speaker 6: to police try and solve the case thinking they're doing
Speaker 6: the wrong thing by short cutting the rules or breaking
Speaker 6: the rules, which is very different to the corruption that
Speaker 6: we saw around the Royal Commission.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still the pursuit of the greater good. And
Speaker 1: then like you said cutting corners or breaking some rules,
Speaker 1: and you think that maybe what's happened here.
Speaker 6: Although I think in terms of Gary's case, you know
Speaker 6: that matter has been through the courts and finalized, so
Speaker 6: I you know, look, I've never spoken to Gary about it.
Speaker 2: I read about it in the papers.
Speaker 6: Obviously he was a retired police officer at this stage.
Speaker 6: But you know, I think that it would be difficult
Speaker 6: to dispute that just to interrupt Gary.
Speaker 1: Jubilin does dispute that Gary hates the idea of noble
Speaker 1: cause corruption and he insists everything he did on the
Speaker 1: William two and investigation was legal and in the interests
Speaker 1: of trying to find a missing child. Now, of course
Speaker 1: the courts did not agree with Gary, and Mick Fuller
Speaker 1: does accept that the way Gary's career ended wasn't straightforward.
Speaker 6: You know, he worked tirelessly, he had a long career
Speaker 6: and you've you know, you can't help but feel a
Speaker 6: little sorry the way he finished his time with New Sulasspoints.
Speaker 1: After Gary left the force, you went on two GB
Speaker 1: and you talked about how the New Strikeforce had one
Speaker 1: particular suspect they were looking at and described the investigation
Speaker 1: that they'd taken over as being a bit of a mess.
Speaker 1: Was that what you were talking about then, this kind
Speaker 1: of position that Gary got into, or were you talking
Speaker 1: about something more broadly?
Speaker 2: I think that Gary's focus.
Speaker 6: Pause enormous angst in the actual task.
Speaker 2: Force itself there.
Speaker 6: And I think one of the challenges in these cases
Speaker 6: is that they are complex. They've been running, you know,
Speaker 6: something over a decade. They have been multiple in investigations
Speaker 6: and often in these cases.
Speaker 2: There are multiple inquests.
Speaker 6: Now what I see comes out of that there is
Speaker 6: that multiple victims come out of that. People feel as
Speaker 6: though they're being victimized. And the frustration for me as
Speaker 6: the commissioner, was always there is only one victim in
Speaker 6: this case, which is William Terrrial.
Speaker 1: So there are other people who maybe see themselves as
Speaker 1: victims or in some ways become victims. And I mean,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, there's been a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of that around this case. All of that draws focus
Speaker 1: from the person who is at the center of it
Speaker 1: and is the central victim.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, And that's like in quest and coronial. The cranial
Speaker 6: process is so important because the current group that strike
Speaker 6: force raised there is actually reporting to the coroner. And
Speaker 6: I think that is sometimes lost on people, is is
Speaker 6: that Dave laid Law and his team a collecting information
Speaker 6: on behalf of the coroner using the coroner's powers.
Speaker 1: Given what you said about how the police at the
Speaker 1: moment of reporting to the coroner, Is it a problem
Speaker 1: then that the Coroner's refused a request to call Dave
Speaker 1: Laidlaw was a witness and said that the reason being
Speaker 1: that the statement he provided, she'd ask for an account
Speaker 1: of the evidence and he hadn't given that he'd given
Speaker 1: her essentially an account of his opinion, and so she
Speaker 1: declined to call him. Is that a problem then?
Speaker 6: I don't think it's a problem because if Dave Laidlaw
Speaker 6: has given a science statement from what he believes, you know,
Speaker 6: they've arrived that, then the coroner has that Now you know,
Speaker 6: the coroner could deserve the right to call Dave back
Speaker 6: at any time, obviously, and it wouldn't be the first
Speaker 6: time that counsel wasting, the coroner or those representing the
Speaker 6: families disagree with police or disagree with the coroners. But
Speaker 6: I think as long as it's made public and the
Speaker 6: public understand that you know the terms of what has
Speaker 6: been accepted and what hasn't.
Speaker 2: It's important also.
Speaker 6: To note when Dave label Or and his team started,
Speaker 6: they went back from scratch and they had over nine
Speaker 6: hundred persons of interest. I won't say suspects that they
Speaker 6: were persons of interest. And when I had finished up,
Speaker 6: I finished up in January twenty twenty two. I've got
Speaker 6: my last breaking on sometime in twenty twenty one. But
Speaker 6: even at that stage then they still had around ten
Speaker 6: persons of interest that they were looking at. So, you know,
Speaker 6: in terms of tunnel vision for Roseanne, I didn't get
Speaker 6: a feeling from that during my time.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because, of course, in that interview on two GB,
Speaker 1: the other thing you talked about was I think you
Speaker 1: were asked specifically was there one person they're looking at,
Speaker 1: because that had been on the front page of the
Speaker 1: Daily Telegraph, and you confirmed there was one person they're
Speaker 1: looking at in particular. And you also sort of wholeheartedly
Speaker 1: back to the Strike Force. I think you said it
Speaker 1: was one of the best, if not the best teams
Speaker 1: that the Force had put together.
Speaker 6: OK, And they laid Law is extremely confident, detective, very apolitical,
Speaker 6: independent of thought. So when he was picked around the
Speaker 6: team and pulled the team together. They were certainly a
Speaker 6: very experienced group. Now people may not like they laid
Speaker 6: Law's opinion on where they have landed, but at the
Speaker 6: same time, you know, I think that they have run
Speaker 6: extremely professional investigation.
Speaker 1: So when you in the interview you said that, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're focusing on one person in particular, at the time,
Speaker 1: they still had maybe I think you said, sort of
Speaker 1: ten persons of interest, but they were focusing on this
Speaker 1: one person in particular at that point.
Speaker 7: I think statistically, when you look at these type of cases,
Speaker 7: if you look at the domestic homicide, in those cases,
Speaker 7: seventy percent of the perpetrators are known to the victim.
Speaker 6: And then when you take these unusual cases of a
Speaker 6: child being abducted or murdered, it's over ninety something percent
Speaker 6: cases where the victim knows the perpetrator. So certainly, statistically,
Speaker 6: they were discussing a number of options around you know,
Speaker 6: who was close to wire you And.
Speaker 1: Do you know if what they had ever went beyond
Speaker 1: statistics in terms of why they were looking at this
Speaker 1: one person particular.
Speaker 6: I never tested they've laid law or the team about
Speaker 6: why they were or weren't doing something. You know as
Speaker 6: the commissioner, I would never force an opinion in relation
Speaker 6: to how an investigation.
Speaker 2: Should be wrapped.
Speaker 6: And the commissioner's perspective is that you just want to
Speaker 6: make sure that when you stand up in front of
Speaker 6: the media, you can hand on heart say that you've
Speaker 6: put all the resources and you know you've got your
Speaker 6: best people working on these cases.
Speaker 1: And that's looking back, that is how you look at it.
Speaker 1: It was the best team that you could put onto it,
Speaker 1: and it was the resources it demanded.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, And again the anti challenge in those comments is
Speaker 6: that I know this four hundred and forty other families
Speaker 6: sort of drop their heads feeling as though that they're
Speaker 6: not getting the same attention. But look, I always gave
Speaker 6: time to victims' families on the basis that they deserve
Speaker 6: to be heard.
Speaker 1: Just on that point, you said you always gave victims
Speaker 1: families time. You were publicly criticized by William's foster parents,
Speaker 1: so not his birth parents, but his foster parents who
Speaker 1: did come out. There was a podcast they spoke on,
Speaker 1: and they wrote letters and including criticizing both the decisions
Speaker 1: to take Gary Jibbling off the case. But what they
Speaker 1: perceived is a lack of action and also personally a
Speaker 1: lack of response in your part. They said they wrote
Speaker 1: your letters, so they left your phone messages and they
Speaker 1: said they never heard back from you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Look, I honestly if they feeled as though that in
Speaker 6: some way that you know, I let William down, then
Speaker 6: you know, of course that would you know, I would
Speaker 6: say sorry for that. But at the same time, I
Speaker 6: think what was more important was a clean slate and
Speaker 6: again doing our best to focus on solving solving the matter.
Speaker 6: And you know in that, you know, I ensured that
Speaker 6: the resources were provided and the task force was properly funded.
Speaker 6: But look, if they had criticized me, you know, I
Speaker 6: accept the criticism. Dan. It's a complex job and there's
Speaker 6: lots of moving parts and you try to keep people
Speaker 6: happy all the time but often fail.
Speaker 1: Were you actually aware of that criticism at the time.
Speaker 6: Though, No, no, no, I wasn't. But again then, as
Speaker 6: a Commissioner of Police that in Australia, I often got
Speaker 6: plenty of praise from people, but equally there were plenty
Speaker 6: of people that were unhappy. And it's not that you
Speaker 6: ignore that, but you can't let that impact on daily
Speaker 6: decisions because Unfortunately, every day someone is a victim of
Speaker 6: a serious crime.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one of the things you take on
Speaker 1: when you take on a role like that, I'd imagine
Speaker 1: is you know, you become a public figure for the
Speaker 1: good and the bad, and there's going to be both
Speaker 1: and to steer your way through that, isn't it?
Speaker 2: No, it is.
Speaker 6: But at the same time, if they feel as though
Speaker 6: that somehow they didn't get vict and care from me,
Speaker 6: then you know, of course I'm apologetic about that, but
Speaker 6: there was no malice to that. But again, you'll spread
Speaker 6: pretty thin at the best of times, but there was
Speaker 6: certainly no malice in that, and you know, accept their criticism.
Speaker 1: Just a couple of last things I'd like to ask you,
Speaker 1: if possible. One is this investigation in terms of the
Speaker 1: public understanding of this investigation turned on its head when
Speaker 1: it became public that the strike force was looking at
Speaker 1: one person, particularly being William's foster mother, that was on
Speaker 1: front page of the Daily Telegraph. Were you aware that
Speaker 1: story was coming at the time, because a lot of
Speaker 1: people in the police weren't aware.
Speaker 6: No, I wasn't aware that the Daily Telegraph was going
Speaker 6: to run a story on it. Look I know, Gary
Speaker 6: has been interviewed since his retirement and said that, you know,
Speaker 6: he had looked at the poster parents at one stage
Speaker 6: and discounted them.
Speaker 2: So I.
Speaker 6: Think it would be unreasonable to think that that story
Speaker 6: shocked anyone, particularly now you Look. Do you, as a
Speaker 6: police officer have off the record conversations with journalists? Yeah,
Speaker 6: absolutely you do, and I'm sure you rely on those
Speaker 6: every day. But I certainly have never come out publicly
Speaker 6: on any case and said something that would cause prejudice
Speaker 6: against an outcome, because you have to remember that even
Speaker 6: if I had a hunch and that Hunt was right
Speaker 6: and I said something to prejudice, then your cause more
Speaker 6: damaged than good dance.
Speaker 1: So the case, were you involved in any off the
Speaker 1: record conversations before that story came out?
Speaker 6: Look, I honestly don't recall it. I truly don't, but
Speaker 6: but I will say this, I had plenty of off
Speaker 6: the record conversations, and as the commissioner, I was sort
Speaker 6: of prided myself on being available and having an opinion. Now,
Speaker 6: backgrounding a story is one thing, but if you know,
Speaker 6: there's a suggestion that somehow that I had maliciously given
Speaker 6: information for a public story, as commissioner.
Speaker 2: Well, then it's just not true. There's no suggestion.
Speaker 6: Of any But did I talk to journalists, yep, journalists
Speaker 6: still ring me?
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, yes they do.
Speaker 6: But you know, I think, you know, I don't feel
Speaker 6: like I've been let down by a journalist, and I
Speaker 6: don't feel as though that I've ever used that maliciously
Speaker 6: to damage anyone.
Speaker 1: Okay, last thing, looking back now, you're obviously out of
Speaker 1: the police and your time as commissioner has finished. This
Speaker 1: investigation hasn't looking back at it now, what are your
Speaker 1: thoughts about the case?
Speaker 6: I feel it in my heart that in these cases
Speaker 6: you could look back in hindsight and say, look, the
Speaker 6: first three days were consequential in probably solving the case,
Speaker 6: and there was a focus on William being a missing person.
Speaker 6: And I'm sure there's things that we all would have
Speaker 6: liked to have done better back in twenty fourteen. So
Speaker 6: I think, you know, at the same time, this is
Speaker 6: a particularly challenging case. It was never going to be
Speaker 6: easy to solve, and maybe it won't get sold this time,
Speaker 6: but you know, people won't give up on William Tyrrell.
Speaker 6: You know, new police coming through that will take over
Speaker 6: this case from Dave laidlaw at some stage and will
Speaker 6: do another fresh suit of eyes then. So you know,
Speaker 6: I would love to say that this matter was sold
Speaker 6: before I retired.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately it wasn't.
Speaker 6: And sometimes it takes thirty forty years for these type
Speaker 6: of matters to be solved, and unfortunately then sometimes they
Speaker 6: never solved.
Speaker 1: Okay, So for me, the most significant part of what
Speaker 1: Mick Fuller said is at the end there he says
Speaker 1: the first three days of this investigation into William two
Speaker 1: or were consequential in solving the case, and that there
Speaker 1: was a focus on William being a missing person in
Speaker 1: that time, and in hindsight, he says, I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: things we all would have liked to have done better
Speaker 1: back in twenty fourteen. And I think that direct reference
Speaker 1: to that first fatal mistake not to protect what was
Speaker 1: a crime scene, to stop people going on it, because
Speaker 1: we know hundreds of people were up and down that
Speaker 1: street cars were driving up and.
Speaker 3: Down, cars weren't being stopped.
Speaker 1: Carl weren't being stopped, searched, identities of drivers taken to
Speaker 1: allow all that to happen and not close it down
Speaker 1: and say we're going to look for forensic evidence.
Speaker 3: But we saw that the lessons have been learned from
Speaker 3: William's case.
Speaker 1: They have, and the police policy has changed now relatively
Speaker 1: recently to allow or encourage cops to look at that
Speaker 1: much much sooner.
Speaker 3: In the piece, if you saw the response time on
Speaker 3: Cleo Smith.
Speaker 1: Cleo Smith was a girl who went missing in Western Australia,
Speaker 1: so a different police force. But yes, that was done
Speaker 1: much sooner. And look, you don't know if that's the
Speaker 1: thing that would have solved this, and you can't say that,
Speaker 1: but Cleo Smith was found. She'd been abducted and she
Speaker 1: was found within days. The other thing Mick fully says,
Speaker 1: and this the more I think about it, the more
Speaker 1: this kind of I can't quite get past this is
Speaker 1: he says, this is a particularly challenging case. It was
Speaker 1: never going to be easy to solve, and maybe it
Speaker 1: won't get solved this time. And there's new police coming
Speaker 1: through that will take over this case from David Laidlaw
Speaker 1: at some stage and there'll be another fresh set of
Speaker 1: eyes there. And sometimes it takes thirty or forty years
Speaker 1: for these cases to be solved. But by saying that,
Speaker 1: I think implicitly he's saying that David laidlaw. The currently
Speaker 1: detective might not solve this case because he's saying other
Speaker 1: police will take it from him. And he's also saying, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: sometimes these cases are never solved. So you've got the
Speaker 1: guy who was responsible for the police for years while
Speaker 1: William Toole was being looked for by his force saying
Speaker 1: maybe they're not going to find him, Maybe it's going
Speaker 1: to take decades, and maybe the current lead detective isn't
Speaker 1: the man who will solve this case.
Speaker 3: That's significant because the case is with the DPP. They're
Speaker 3: considering charges against the foster mother right now, they're asked
Speaker 3: to hold off.
Speaker 1: Yes, the police sent the brief of evidence to the
Speaker 1: Director of Public Prosecutions.
Speaker 3: Presumably now that the inquest is over they will get
Speaker 3: back to considering that.
Speaker 1: Look, that is a really good point. The police sent
Speaker 1: a brief of evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions
Speaker 1: for advice on whether they could charge William's foster mother.
Speaker 1: Now we don't technically know what that was about, but
Speaker 1: there's been enough in the media that we know, and
Speaker 1: they said in court that it's to do with disposing
Speaker 1: of his body. And then there was months and the
Speaker 1: DPP said nothing publicly, and then the cops said, look,
Speaker 1: can you stop thinking about that until the inquest is done.
Speaker 1: And the inquest is now done, I think they'll wait
Speaker 1: until the coroner's findings. But at that point, yeah, the
Speaker 1: cops will hopefully ask the DPP to make a decision,
Speaker 1: and the DPP's going to have to say whether they
Speaker 1: think William's fostermum can be charged, whether that decision will
Speaker 1: ever be made public. It would be made public if
Speaker 1: she is charged, but if not, although given the history
Speaker 1: of leaks in this case, probably find that one out.
Speaker 1: But if she's not charged, or if she's charged and
Speaker 1: not found guilty, then you've got the police have looked
Speaker 1: at this case for four years and haven't solved it.
Speaker 1: And I don't think we're really much further forward than
Speaker 1: we were ten years ago in terms of working out
Speaker 1: what did happen to William on that day in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, I think I think the inquest, to
Speaker 3: give credit to the inquest, did a really good job
Speaker 3: of examining the initial search for William and I think
Speaker 3: effectively ruling out that he had wandered off. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: that I think at this point we can assume did
Speaker 3: not happen. Yeah, beyond that, there's a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you there is one crucial witness who I
Speaker 1: think has been overlooked, at least in the public mind,
Speaker 1: and that is William's sister, who was at the house
Speaker 1: on the day he was reported missing. She was four
Speaker 1: years old, he was three. They were playing together on
Speaker 1: the front veranda of the house with William's foster mother
Speaker 1: and foster grandmother, and when she was asked by police
Speaker 1: what happened to him, she said, he was playing this
Speaker 1: game Daddy Tiger, so running up and roaring and running away.
Speaker 1: He was playing that on the balcony and then he
Speaker 1: went off and he was finding Daddy's car. So that's
Speaker 1: what William's sister. I think he's probably the person who
Speaker 1: knows him best. And also she's four and probably I
Speaker 1: don't think it's capable of maintaining a lie to the
Speaker 1: police at that point, so I think that's honest. And
Speaker 1: in terms of looking for Daddy's car, we do know
Speaker 1: that William's foster father had gone off. He'd driven away
Speaker 1: to make a work call and he was driving back,
Speaker 1: and we do know that that family had this history
Speaker 1: of going out to wait for him when he came
Speaker 1: back from work, and the kids would be surprised and
Speaker 1: they'd run to him. And William's sister is saying that
Speaker 1: William went off to look for daddy's car. We also
Speaker 1: know that two of the neighbors who lived just opposite
Speaker 1: the house where William went missing, say they heard the
Speaker 1: sound of a car on gravel, and there was gravel
Speaker 1: around the top of Benirum Drive. And we do know
Speaker 1: that the foster father's car, like a lot of cars,
Speaker 1: looked quite similar to one of the neighbors cars, and
Speaker 1: there were people in the street. Paul Savage was out
Speaker 1: at the time. He was packing his car. But William's
Speaker 1: sister is now the one person in this that we
Speaker 1: can't talk to or hear from in any form. She's
Speaker 1: given evidence to the police, She's been interviewed by the
Speaker 1: police several times over the years, but in the inquest
Speaker 1: every time they play that evidence, it's in close court
Speaker 1: because fair enough, she's a child, she's vulnerable. They want
Speaker 1: to protect her. But in trying to protect her, they've
Speaker 1: actually made it impossible for her evidence to be heard publicly.
Speaker 1: And if I'm honest, I don't see how hearing her
Speaker 1: evidence is going to harm her. And Okay, I'm not
Speaker 1: qualified to make that decision, and I'm not a child
Speaker 1: protection specialist, I'm not the coroner. But it does mean
Speaker 1: that this one crucial witness who has said what she
Speaker 1: thinks William was doing at the time he went missing,
Speaker 1: hasn't been heard from in public.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we're coming to the end of the year. Yes,
Speaker 3: we are coming to the end of the series for now,
Speaker 3: are we done?
Speaker 2: We have a.
Speaker 1: Difference of opinion about this because I want to say
Speaker 1: what we're still doing and you don't want me to
Speaker 1: say it.
Speaker 3: We have questions.
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say we have questions. So
Speaker 1: in terms of what will happen next, that written submission
Speaker 1: process you talked about, which may or may not happen
Speaker 1: in public, I suspect won't. And then the inquest will
Speaker 1: report at some time the coroner will hand down her findings.
Speaker 1: My guess is that will take a few months, but.
Speaker 3: We will be there to report on that. We will
Speaker 3: will be there to report on any other significant updates
Speaker 3: in the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the thing you don't want me to talk
Speaker 1: about is that we still have questions. We do but
Speaker 1: more than questions, we have been working to fine answers.
Speaker 1: And there's been a whole other investigation associated with this
Speaker 1: one that you've been doing, particularly in the background, not
Speaker 1: on your own. There's been a few of us working
Speaker 1: on it. But you have found things that surprised me.
Speaker 1: You have found things that frankly I cannot believe have
Speaker 1: not been made public, and you've found things that at
Speaker 1: times actually kind of shocked me. So those things are
Speaker 1: part of the answers that we've been working on, and
Speaker 1: we are going to come back with this podcast to
Speaker 1: look at those questions to give you those answers. And
Speaker 1: those answers are about things that have happened on the
Speaker 1: mid North coast of New South Wales, which is where
Speaker 1: William went missing. And it is beautiful country. It's white sand,
Speaker 1: it's thick forest, and it's also the home of some
Speaker 1: really troubling allegations. So this inquest may have stopped, but
Speaker 1: this podcast hasn't. We still have questions and we are
Speaker 1: going to find answers and we will do that in
Speaker 1: the next episode of Witness William Tyrell. A lot of
Speaker 1: different people have been involved in making this series, among
Speaker 1: them the executive producer is Nina Young. The sound design
Speaker 1: was by Tiffany Dimack. The producers have been Emily Pigeon,
Speaker 1: Nicholas Adams, Jazzbar, Phoebe Zakowski, Wallace and Tabby Wilson. Research
Speaker 1: by Adan Patrick, original music by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer
Speaker 1: is Stephen Coombs, the editor at news dot com. What
Speaker 1: a U is Kerry Warren, I'm Dan Box
Speaker 6: M hm