WEBVTT - The death investigator: Hugh Dillon Pt.1 0:00:01.880 --> 0:00:04.880 The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:08.039 Detective see aside of life the average person is never 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:11.119 exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.040 For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.200 That's what I did for a living. I was a 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:20.560 homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.120 I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.400 The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:28.760 from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.440 and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.640 of the content and language might be confronting. That's because 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:37.640 no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:46.879 Join me now as I take you into this world. Today, 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:49.760 I had the privilege of sitting down having a chat 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:53.320 with former New South Wales Deputy State Coroner Hugh Dylon. 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.400 I say privilege because Hugh shares a passion very much 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.760 aligned with what I considered the most important I had 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.200 as a homicide detective. That was looking after the families 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.039 of people who have died in the tragic, violent and 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.920 unusual circumstances, bringing whatever comfort possible to the deceased. Families 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:14.479 by providing answers as to what happened to their loved 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:19.440 ones and where possible prevent unnecessary deaths. Throughout his career, 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.600 Hugh presided over more than three hundred inquests, including the 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:27.360 horrific School of Happiness case where one man hunted police 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:29.759 with a crossbow in the middle of the night during 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:35.000 the Hippie festival. He also oversaw murders, suicides, and tragic 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:36.160 accidental deaths. 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:37.800 As you'll find. 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.000 Out in our discussion, the coroner's court is filled with sadness. 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.120 In the motion, Hugh takes us through the cases of 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.520 the oversaw, how the system can be improved, and the 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.840 personal impact of dealing with death on a daily basis. 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:54.760 Hugh Dylan, thanks for coming on I Catch Killers. 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:57.559 It's a great pleasure. Gren very nice to see you again. 0:01:57.840 --> 0:01:59.960 Well, it is good to see you, and I always 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:02.160 I had a lot of respect for the role that 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:06.280 you did as a coroner, and you were the deputy 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.160 state coroner or is a coroner for nine years. Yes, 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:13.400 that's right, and in prepping for it, I believe that 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.360 you oversaw probably three hundred roughly three hundred question. 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:21.280 Yeah, it's a bit hard to work. It out exactly, 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:23.120 but a round about three hundred, I'd. 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:24.720 Say, yeah, it's a lot. 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:29.200 And I don't think people fully appreciate the impact that 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.320 the coroner's court has. I found it in all the 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:35.080 areas of policing I work. That's when I saw the 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:40.520 most emotion at coroner's courts, because you're talking about someone's died. 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.760 That's generally what the inquest is about. And you've got 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.720 the families and loved ones there holding on to hope 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:49.000 or trying to get answers. 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:50.400 Is that how you felt? 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:58.200 Yeah, Look, it's a surprising place. It's a surprising niche 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:02.519 in the legal system, and most people in the law, 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:07.560 most people in society have no idea. But I can 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.680 remember the first day I went to the coroner's court. 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:15.239 I was a new magistrate and I was really surprised 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:21.720 by it. Apart from anything else. The coroners were doing this, 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:24.840 this kind of work that no other lawyers in our 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:30.440 society do. And also they're working in teams and as 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:36.160 you say, their concern is or who has died, how 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.400 they've died, why they've died, but also what can we 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.360 say to the families and the families My father was 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:49.280 a coroner's case himself around about forty years ago, and 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:54.200 I remember, I remember very very well getting the news 0:03:54.280 --> 0:04:00.720 that he died suddenly, and the shock and the confusion 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:04.800 that that throws you into. So to walk into this 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:10.520 place as a coroner, and to try and grapple with 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:15.280 that confusion, the bewilderment, and of course the sadness was 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:21.960 somewhat bewildering to me as well. But Garry I really 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:27.440 liked being a coroner, and some people would be astonished 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.320 to hear me say that, I guess, because of course 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.640 you're right. It is a very sad place in lots 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:40.880 of ways. Families are devastated, they're confused, one answers. Sometimes 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:46.680 they have interesting theories about how someone they love has died. 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:50.360 Some of those theories are right, but some of them 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:55.880 are wrong. And it's very difficult to walk people into 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:59.320 the evidence and through it and then bring them to 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:06.479 some sort of understanding, some sense of what happened. I 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:08.880 think some people might call this sense making, you know, 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.640 how do we make sense of these terrible events. 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.599 There's a lot of expectation when people get to the 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.680 coroner's court. I saw that over the years with families 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.599 and it's almost like, Okay, the answer is going to 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.760 be forthcoming when the matter gets to the coroner's court, 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:27.479 and I think meeting the family's expectation or that's a 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.359 difficult part too, because sometimes the facts don't present the 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.400 way the family expected it to, and quite often the 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.359 evidence that is given at a coronial inquest is quite 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.520 confronting to the families and loved ones of the deceased person. 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:46.800 Well, that's right, And although you're always very glad as 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:51.360 a coroner if you have found the answers, there are 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:53.760 lots of cases where you don't, and you, as a 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.680 homicide or an ex homicide detective, would be very familiar 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:01.560 with some of those cases. You know, there are unsolved 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.400 homicides as well as you know all the I want 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.080 to call them happy endings, but they're cases in which 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:13.280 there is an answer for people. And to leave people 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:17.000 without answers is it's not only very frustrating, but it's 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:22.480 also very sad because you can't help empathizing and feeling 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.360 for them but also with them. You know, if you 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.279 lose a daughter, you know, I'm thinking about my daughter 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:35.719 as I'm talking to you about you losing yours. What 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:43.039 a shattering and incomplete kind of sense of life you 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.599 might have. So, as I say, sometimes you can provide 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.200 answers and that can give people a sense of resolution. 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.159 I don't believe there's any such thing as closure. I 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.240 think that's a false hope. 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.160 I'm glad you say that, and that tells me you 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.599 understand the situation that families go through. And I got 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.320 clipped very early in my career when use the word 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:12.040 closure to a family and they pointed out very very 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.600 clear to me, it's not the closure. You never get 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.240 closure from that. And that's what happens when and it's 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:22.560 not always homicide. If someone's I would find that in 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.200 the courrner's court. Those tragic accidents are hard to deal 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:30.200 with too, because I look at homicide and often the 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:34.640 families can allocate blame to a particular person. Where there's 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.160 accidents where there's the fault, like there's built up anger 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.000 and sadness and that it's nowhere to channel it. 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.920 That's right, and I think the families of missing people 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:51.720 have a particularly onerous load to bear. I guess if 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:57.920 you can bury your your loved ones, you can have 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.720 a sense of not camp or anything like that. But 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:06.800 you can say goodbye, but all you have is your 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.240 last memories of them, and then they disappear off the 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.520 face of the earth. How do you deal with that? 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.200 I really don't know, and I never really learned how 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:22.200 to how to give people a sense of peace or 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:28.520 any sense of forward movement. I think the only thing 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:33.439 you can do for people where their loved ones disappear 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:38.240 is respect, recognition. You know, we will do our best 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:42.520 to find out what happened, but sometimes the answer is 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:44.319 beyond reach. 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:44.960 That's not there. 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.079 I saw with families on missing persons cases quite often 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.680 that I felt like it was a step that helped 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.920 them in processing what had happened when the coroner would 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:59.520 declare the person deceased. Because what I've seen with families 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:03.480 and friends of people who have just disappeared, they always 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.200 hang on to that smidge and of hope that the 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.000 person's going to walk through the door one day and 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:09.800 they're going to yell at the person, go what have 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.280 you done? And then they're going to give each other 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:14.680 a big cuddle and get on with their lives. So 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.160 I think sometimes they hold on to hope, and quite 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.840 often I've seen it in cranial inquest where the coroner's 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.240 declared the person deceased manner and cause might have known, 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.120 but believe that the person is deceased because of checks 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.319 that have been done, and I feel like it's a 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.400 step forward. But the coroner's court I always found the 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.120 expectations were high by the families. It was a lot 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:43.120 of it's built up like if the investigation into the 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:47.640 death of someone hasn't revealed the information or the person responsible. 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.280 Quite often the hope is, well, we'll get the answers 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:52.320 at the coroner's court. But that's not always the way, 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.840 and that must have carried hard on you being a coroner, 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:58.840 that the family is steering. But where else do we go? 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.120 And the sad part is sometimes there is nowhere else 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:02.360 to go after the coroner's court. 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:08.559 Yeah, and it's very frustrating. And from time to time 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.920 I think coroners I think they fail people by not 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.480 saying what they really think. Sometimes, I think, and I've 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:24.760 seen this happen, particularly within experienced coroners, they will simply 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.360 because they know how sad people are and how hard 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.400 it will hit them. If you say I think your 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.760 loved one is dead, they say, oh, well, you know 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:41.880 the evidence isn't quite sufficient, so maybe they're still soften that. Yeah, 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:46.400 And I to be honest, I think that does not 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:52.920 help people cope with what has actually happened. If someone 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:57.400 has disappeared and they've I mean very occasionally people do 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.800 turn up. I know, we all know that, but it 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:05.559 is so rare. It's just once in many, many blue moons. 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:08.680 And I think as a coroner you have a duty 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.920 of care both to the dead in respect to them, 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:17.840 but also to the families to be upfront with families 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:22.680 and say, the investigation has got this far, we don't 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:27.520 know precisely what happened, but your loved one more than 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.040 likely is dead. We can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:36.040 aps but it's almost certain. So that's all we can do. 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:36.880 I think. 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:39.199 I think that's kind of false hope. Can be a 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.880 very cruel thing if false hope is offered out. So 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.000 I think roll of a coroner and that is quite 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.199 often the final step for families trying to find out 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.800 what's happened to their loved one, especially with people who disappeared. 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.080 Tell us what was your story into becoming a coroner? 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:56.760 Ah? 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:01.360 Well, I obviously did a law degree in Australia, coroners 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:06.720 are lawyers. In New South Bales, they're all magistrates. I 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:11.040 did some legal research, I worked for a judge, I 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:13.640 worked for the New South Bale's ombudsman, and then I 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.880 got a job as a Comwealth prosecutor. So I worked 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:19.840 for the Commonwealth DPP for a number of years. Then 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.040 I was appointed a magistrate. Did about twelve years as 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.880 a magistrate and I was on the point of leaving 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:32.760 the magistracy and my friend Mary Durham, who was the 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:37.840 new state coroner, heard that I was contemplating leaving and 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.280 she got in touch with me and asked me whether 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.679 i'd like to have a go as a coroner. And 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.560 to be honest, I thought, oh my god, this is 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:51.560 so depressing, this kind of work. But I really liked Mary, 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:56.200 and she said, well, she said a few flattering things 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.199 about me, so I found it out to say no 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:04.120 to her, to be me very forthros, very forthright. She 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:09.400 also is very persuasive, and I thought, okay, well, I've 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.679 put off going to the bar for six months, I'll 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.760 go and see what this is like. You know, all 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:20.360 experience is good experience, and I really when I got there, 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:25.600 I really liked the work, partly because I was working 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.720 with really good people like Mary. But one of the 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.760 things i'd really missed as a magistrate was working in 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.680 a team. And Gary, you know what it's like working 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.720 in teams most homicide cases. 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.320 You share the pressure, so the pressure. 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:49.440 But it's also sharing ideas and a community, a small community, 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:54.400 a team can generate more ideas than a bunch of 0:13:54.440 --> 0:14:01.360 single individuals, definitely, and so strangely enough, although the work 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:08.840 could be very confronting and very sad and saddening, I 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.720 really enjoyed working with the team of people I was 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:16.360 working with. So instead of leaving after six months, I 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:20.600 stayed and I just stayed on until basically the chief 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:25.720 magistrate said, well, your time's up. You've had enough time 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.360 here and you're coming back to the local court. And 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:32.600 I thought, well, no, I'm not. I like being a coroner. 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.040 I don't want to be a magistrate anymore. So that's 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:37.800 when I. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.120 Left, decide to leave. 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.640 It's funny that you get rotated, or a tap on 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:45.440 the shoulder that you've been there too long. I would 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:50.200 imagine something in the role of a pathway as a coroner, 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.240 you'd be learning all the time. Yeah, yeah, you'd be 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.880 learning how not just the processes in place, but how 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.800 to deal with families and all that. I could imagine 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:00.840 every day you went to work. 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:06.560 Look, I think that's absolutely right. And I remember saying too, 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:10.840 we had this rotation, three year rotation thing, and I 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.720 remember saying to the Chief Magistrate, I don't think I 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.000 was any good at this job until I've been in 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.960 it for two years, that makes sense. And then so 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:24.520 three years I'm just starting really to get good at it. 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:29.040 And I thought I wasn't an expert coroner until i'd 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.440 been doing it for five years. But look, after I left, 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.720 I've done further study. I've done a PhD, which is 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:42.360 a study of then you Saitho's coronial system, and I've 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:46.440 learned so much more. So I know that you're absolutely right. 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.680 Nine years I was learning all the time, and since 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.160 I left the Coroner's Court, I've been learning even more. 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.600 So you need to stay in these jobs to get 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:57.360 really good at that. 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.080 Well, it is a specialist field. I would imagine that 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:02.840 the role of a magistrate as compared to the role 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:05.320 of a current is vastly different. 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:11.040 Very very different. A magistrate's job is primarily running small 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:15.880 summary trials and sentencing. So some days you sit in 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:19.800 a court and sentence people who are pleading guilty to 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:25.080 various things. Other days you have hearings. You might do 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:29.760 bails and apprehended violence applications and that sort of stuff. 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.560 After a while, it becomes very repetitious. You'd become to 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:38.200 be perfectly honest, I think I was quite a good magistrate. 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:42.560 But practice makes perfect and you're doing a lot of practice. 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:45.480 So after a couple of years of that, I think 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:49.480 I was pretty pretty good at it. After five years 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:52.640 of it, I really needed a change, and so I 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:57.560 did civil civil cases mainly. And again, it took me 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.720 about five years before I thought I was experted that, 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:03.600 and then the coroner's job came on. 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.800 Okay, can you explain what the role of the coroner's 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:11.040 court is? So I obviously aware of it, but if 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.320 you could explain to the listeners, because I think there's 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.280 a misconception on some of the aspects of coroner's courts 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:17.320 what their role is. 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:22.879 If you could explain, it's death investigation, So if someone 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:29.959 dies suddenly or in an unexplained or difficult to understand way, 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:37.920 or due to an unnatural cause, accidents, suicide, homicides, these 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:42.199 sort of things in our society, and since the twelfth 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:46.959 century actually there have been coroners who investigated these sudden, 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:52.159 unexplained or unnatural deaths. The coroners are one of the 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:59.040 oldest legal institutions in the world and so Australia imported 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.880 coroners when first Fleet arrived. The first in quest in 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:07.680 Australia was in December seventeen eighty eight a convict diet 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:11.600 and a inquest was held. And so we've had this 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:17.160 two hundred and fifty odd years of people inquiring into 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.879 how a death came about. And it's a very different 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.000 process from a criminal trial, as you're well aware. 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:27.639 If you could break that down as well, because I 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.399 think people think sometimes it mata goes to the coroner 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:32.639 and the coroner could find this person guilty of in 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:34.600 the fence, but that's not the case at all, and 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:36.720 that's a whole different set of rules. 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:39.800 Well, even if you think a person is guilty of 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:44.600 criminal offense, you have no jurisdiction to decide that. That 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.240 has to be decided elsewhere by that first of all, 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:51.040 by the DPP and then by a criminal court. But 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.080 to go back, what's the process. Well, first of all, 0:18:55.400 --> 0:19:01.720 I talked about teams. The coroner's seigners work in a system, 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:06.040 a coronial system, and it's a multidisciplinary system. You were 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:09.040 part of it. I was part of it. Forensic pathologists 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.960 are part of it. Family counselors, support people, administrators, etc. 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.560 Are part of it. But the first thing that happens, 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.680 of course, is that someone reports a death, and that's 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:28.000 usually done by police officers. So police might be called 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.960 to a hospital because someone's diet of injuries or something 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:36.800 like that. The doctors will report to the police, the 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.320 police will report to the coroner, and then there'll be 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:44.919 a medical examination. The coroners and the forensic pathologists will 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:51.120 decide how to examine the person's body for evidence of 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:55.600 the physiological or the medical cause of death. So that's 0:19:55.640 --> 0:20:01.440 the first stage. Of course. Families are notified and there's 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:06.480 a whole process of informing them, which is a shattering event, 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.280 as I was talking about a little while ago, really 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:16.880 shattering event for people. So there's a process of talking 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:23.840 family members into this strange process. They may have heard 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:27.199 about or may not have heard about, but most of 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:32.359 them will never have experienced before. So how do you 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.560 bring people into that. That's part of it. So we 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:37.960 have a team. We had a team at the Corners 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:44.120 Court family Support team and the forensic pathologists also had 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:48.879 social workers who are dealing with families. Then we have 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:53.879 police involved. If the circumstances of a case look like 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:58.199 they're unnatural, if the cause of death is looks like 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:02.000 it's unnatural, then the police will do an investigation on 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:06.240 behalf of the coroners. Sometimes that will look like a 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:10.280 homicide investigation, and if it is a homicide, it'll be 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:14.800 a very very thorough investigation. If it's an accident, there 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.840 will also be a police investigation. There may be other 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:21.680 experts called in aviation experts or all sorts of people. 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:27.679 If someone takes their own life, there will also be 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:32.720 a police investigation, and that will be somewhat different from 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:39.080 a homicide investigation because clearly, not only has a person 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:43.040 whom other people love died taken their own life or 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:50.320 apparently so, the family will be so psychologically shaken by 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:56.200 this that they need real care. And that's difficult because 0:21:56.440 --> 0:22:00.280 the first responders will usually be young. Police office is 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:06.040 followed by detectives. The detectives are usually much more experienced 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:15.240 and have seen terrible things usually, but there are lots 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:20.800 of things going on in those scenarios, the shattered love relatives, 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:25.159 but also what happens to the young police officers who 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:29.440 are possibly seeing these sort of scenarios for the first 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:30.440 time in their lives. 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:33.480 Yeah, you mentioned you mentioned the police and what we'll 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:37.200 talk further about that later on, but the impact of 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:41.240 police because we mentioned at the start the full range 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:45.119 of emotions and the heavy emotional toll inquest take. But 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:47.720 there's a lot of people that are affected by it. 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.280 On the issue of suicides too, they're difficult ones. And 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:55.240 I know from earlier because quite often the family don't 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:58.240 want to accept that someone's taken their own life, so 0:22:58.480 --> 0:22:59.480 their minds. 0:22:59.160 --> 0:22:59.879 Sticking over it. 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:02.920 You know, there must be something more to this, so 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:05.359 you're dealing with that aspect of it as well. 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:07.600 But yeah, it's. 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:11.760 Confronting the whole range of things. And then accidents. The 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:16.119 purpose of investigating an accident is to find out ways 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:19.120 of preventing that accident from occurring. Again, that's something that 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:23.359 the coronial process is involved in as well. 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:27.160 That's rightight, And although I think we do that quite 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:31.120 well in in a lot of cases we only hold 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:34.200 about it one hundred inquests a year in the South Bales, 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:38.159 but there are eight thousand or roughly eight thousand deaths 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:43.880 reported every year, so and around about forty percent of 0:23:43.920 --> 0:23:53.160 the reported deaths to unnatural causes. So we don't really 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:58.600 investigate enough enough accidents, I think to learn all the 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:02.679 lessons that could be learned. Ideally, a cronial system should 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:09.320 really thoroughly investigate all the accidents that occurred, that fatalities 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:13.840 and try and put them into patterns or identify trends 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:18.360 so that we can we can pull out life saving lessons. 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:24.080 One thing that people don't often think about, and frankly 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:26.280 I didn't think about when I was a coroner, but 0:24:26.320 --> 0:24:30.359 I have thought about since is the economic value of 0:24:30.359 --> 0:24:37.760 a human life. The Australian government puts an economic value 0:24:38.160 --> 0:24:41.280 on an Australian life. It's called the value of a 0:24:41.400 --> 0:24:45.359 statistical life, and that in twenty twenty four it was 0:24:45.760 --> 0:24:50.359 estimated to be five point seven million dollars and a 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:55.520 life year is valued by actuaries at around about two 0:24:55.560 --> 0:24:58.400 hundred and forty or two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 0:25:00.000 --> 0:25:07.240 So investigating thoroughly the causes of accidents should be regarded 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:12.000 as an investment in life saving because if we could 0:25:12.040 --> 0:25:16.320 save more lives, if we could prevent more accidents, then 0:25:16.720 --> 0:25:21.639 it would be obviously good for the families and the 0:25:21.680 --> 0:25:27.760 community in general if this human cost wasn't spent or incurred. 0:25:27.960 --> 0:25:33.080 But there's also a value to the economy. So if 0:25:33.119 --> 0:25:36.240 you think about it, three thousand unnatural deaths a year, 0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:43.720 that's possibly fifteen billion dollars just putting it in dollar terms, 0:25:43.760 --> 0:25:48.040 which is a very crude an unsatisfactory way to put it, 0:25:48.119 --> 0:25:53.199 but it's really worth looking at. This is not just 0:25:54.240 --> 0:25:57.920 a lot of grief and a lot of sadness. It's 0:25:57.960 --> 0:26:01.720 an enormous cost to the society that we live. 0:26:01.600 --> 0:26:05.880 In that we've lost the life these things like I'll 0:26:05.880 --> 0:26:10.399 pluck this as an example because it's fairly topical at 0:26:10.440 --> 0:26:13.720 the moment or current, like eese scooters, when there's a 0:26:13.760 --> 0:26:15.920 death on an new scooter, we see that these scooters 0:26:15.920 --> 0:26:19.280 on long foot paths, or the role of a coronario 0:26:19.280 --> 0:26:22.960 would imagine I'm talking hypothetically here, is if there's a 0:26:23.040 --> 0:26:26.760 series of accidents in quests, Okay, well how did this accident? 0:26:26.800 --> 0:26:30.119 There might be recommendations like the helmet recommendation there is 0:26:30.119 --> 0:26:33.119 an obvious one or not the right on footpaths or 0:26:33.160 --> 0:26:35.800 certain things that might prevent deaths as well. 0:26:35.840 --> 0:26:37.840 That's the role of a corona. 0:26:38.200 --> 0:26:43.600 Yeah, and ideally most in quests would result in recommendations 0:26:43.640 --> 0:26:48.960