Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, June seven. Nine Entertainment chairman Peter Costello, the
Speaker 1: former Federal Treasurer, has knocked a journalist to the ground
Speaker 1: at Canberra Airport.
Speaker 2: Mister Cassello, my name is Liam Mendez from The Australian.
Speaker 1: The incident occurred when The Australians reporter Leam Mendes approached
Speaker 1: Costello for comment on the crisis engulfing nine's chief executive
Speaker 1: Mike Sneezebe over sexual harassment allegations against a former senior executive.
Speaker 1: Costello barges towards Mendes and pushes him to the ground.
Speaker 2: Why won't you support mister sneezebe publicly good? Well, you've
Speaker 2: got to answer the questions, mister Castello don't. And you've
Speaker 2: just assaulted me. You've just pushed me. It's all on camera,
Speaker 2: mister Cassello.
Speaker 1: Costello has denied the incident was an assault, claiming Mendors
Speaker 1: simply fell over.
Speaker 2: Mister Costello, did you assault a journalist at Canbra Airport?
Speaker 1: When questioned in Parliament House by journalists including The Australians,
Speaker 1: Rhiann and down. Costello told them to be careful not
Speaker 1: to fall.
Speaker 2: Mister Costello, when you consider your position, get in front
Speaker 2: and I'll come and talk to you all out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's much as you'll fall over your coup. When
Speaker 3: I came to a Cambra airport, there was a reporter
Speaker 3: walking backwards with his phone filming. As I walked past him,
Speaker 3: he walked back into an advertising pack card and he
Speaker 3: fell I did not strike him. If he's upset about that,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: But I did not strike him.
Speaker 3: And it was a public place which I was entitled
Speaker 3: to walk through. And as I said to you, he
Speaker 3: hit the advertising balot he fell over. I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 3: I wish that hadn't have happened. But you know this
Speaker 3: is I've seen it happened a million times. There's already
Speaker 3: speculation that this could put your chairmanship at risk. What
Speaker 3: is your response to Rosa The journalist said, you assaulted
Speaker 3: me and you loved and walked away.
Speaker 1: You can watch the video and read what triggered the
Speaker 1: encounter right now at the Australian dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: The fourth episode of the Australian's latest investigative podcast series
Speaker 1: is out today Bronwyn tells the story of missing lennox
Speaker 1: Head mum Bronwyn Winfield, who disappeared from the idyllic surftown
Speaker 1: in the early nineties. Today, Bromwin's creator, The Australian's Headley Thomas,
Speaker 1: joins me with a big revelation in this new episode
Speaker 1: Stay with Us. On May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three, thirty
Speaker 1: one year old Bronwyn Winfield tucked her two little girls
Speaker 1: into bed at the family home in lenox Head on
Speaker 1: the New South Wales North Coast and vanished. Still there
Speaker 1: are no answers, many of our listeners will know. The
Speaker 1: Australian's National Chief correspondent Headley Thomas is trying to change
Speaker 1: that in his new investigative podcast series simply called Bronwyn.
Speaker 1: So far in this series, we've heard about Bronwyn's unhappy
Speaker 1: marriage to John Winfield, who built the lenox Head house
Speaker 1: Bronwyn described as a prison. These are Bromwin's diaries being
Speaker 1: read by a voice actor. When we moved to lenox Head,
Speaker 1: I was even more lonely. The house that was Bill
Speaker 1: became John's castle and my prison. We've heard how Bronwyn
Speaker 1: was seeking a divorce from John and custody of her daughters.
Speaker 1: We've delved into her complex family history and the red herrings.
Speaker 1: The Ment Police didn't conduct a thorough investigation until years
Speaker 1: after Bronwyn had disappeared. We know a coroner recommended John
Speaker 1: Winfield be prosecuted for her murder, and now in episode four,
Speaker 1: we're examining who else knew what and when Headley. Since
Speaker 1: we launched the podcast, one of the things you were
Speaker 1: very keen to ensure that we did was to set
Speaker 1: up a special email address where listeners could contact you.
Speaker 1: That's Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot au. We
Speaker 1: share access to that mailbox and I can see you
Speaker 1: in the reading and responding to the people who get
Speaker 1: in touch. What's been the sense that you've got from
Speaker 1: the audience and the people who are motivated to reach
Speaker 1: out to you.
Speaker 4: I get a range of reactions from people who knew
Speaker 4: Bromwan and want to share anecdotes and memories of their
Speaker 4: time with her, People who actually also knew Bromwan's children
Speaker 4: and remembered them as babies and recall how exceptionally close
Speaker 4: and devoted Brommin was to her girls. And also people
Speaker 4: who do know something. Sometimes they don't want to be
Speaker 4: interviewed themselves, but they're making suggestions to me about talking
Speaker 4: to someone they know with information, and that's led to
Speaker 4: a number of new chapters and new interviews that have
Speaker 4: been part of the series even at this early stage.
Speaker 1: One of the people who you've been in touch with
Speaker 1: is John Winfield's former wife. We're calling her D, and
Speaker 1: she's featured in an earlier episode of bromwin What was
Speaker 1: D's account of being married to John Winfield?
Speaker 4: D spoke to me about being a young woman married
Speaker 4: to John, having fallen in love with him and been
Speaker 4: involved with him in a relationship for several years before
Speaker 4: they tied the knot, and then divorcing him after just
Speaker 4: eighteen months of marriage, and D was pretty candid about
Speaker 4: the problem at the heart of the relationship. She said
Speaker 4: that John was very possessive, just always questioning her. When
Speaker 4: they would walk down the street, when they would go
Speaker 4: out somewhere together, she would be perhaps holding his hand,
Speaker 4: they would be having what she thought was a nice outing,
Speaker 4: but then she would be asked, why are you looking
Speaker 4: at him? What do you see in that person? Why
Speaker 4: were you staring at that guy? And she says, I wasn't.
Speaker 4: After a while that became unbearable for her. She didn't
Speaker 4: want to go on with the marriage, and they split up. Interestingly,
Speaker 4: they had moved together to Lennox Head. They lived in
Speaker 4: a caravan for some time in Sandstone Crescent, where they
Speaker 4: had bought a block of land and were building a house.
Speaker 4: This is the place that John has always loved. He's
Speaker 4: wanted to live in Lenox and surf there. It's his
Speaker 4: favorite beach break, and he believed that he was going
Speaker 4: to live there with d But after they separated, she
Speaker 4: had to go to court. There was a lot of
Speaker 4: dispute because she said she was a good savior. She
Speaker 4: had her own money. She had put money into the
Speaker 4: relationship and into the property that they had been building together.
Speaker 4: When it came time for them to part, and she
Speaker 4: thought she would be able to leave with what she
Speaker 4: had put in, he didn't want to give her anything,
Speaker 4: and she said that she had to sue him to
Speaker 4: get any money. And that's why when she reflects on
Speaker 4: Bromwin's situation, she thinks about John's attachment to the first
Speaker 4: house that he was building with her, just down the
Speaker 4: road from where he would build a house with Bromwin
Speaker 4: several years later.
Speaker 1: Episode four of Bronwin features a snippet of the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine dark comedy Woar of the Roses. Kathleen Turner
Speaker 1: and Michael Douglas's play a couple whose divorce turns bitter,
Speaker 1: and at the center of the dispute is the marital home.
Speaker 1: I've thought about this a lot.
Speaker 5: I really don't want to be married to you, and
Speaker 5: I may have let you have the house, but now
Speaker 5: you'll never get it. You will never get that house.
Speaker 5: Do you understand that you will never get that house?
Speaker 1: And that's the movie that Murray Nolan brom Win, Winfield's
Speaker 1: next door neighbor, was watching on the night of May sixteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three. He remembers that he was watching that
Speaker 1: movie because something interrupted him. It was the sound of
Speaker 1: the Winfields car leaving their driveway next door. Why was
Speaker 1: that unusual for Murray.
Speaker 4: Murray had just got out of hospital. He'd taken off
Speaker 4: on a particularly gnarly wave and been dumped and hit
Speaker 4: The reef, broke his back and, as his wife deb
Speaker 4: told me, crushed his spine like a can. He was
Speaker 4: at home at night on the sofa watching the television,
Speaker 4: and he heard the squeaky brakes of the car that
Speaker 4: he knew so well, he said, the distinctive noise of
Speaker 4: the white Ford Falcons brakes as they squeaked as the
Speaker 4: car eased down the sloping driveway always made him realize
Speaker 4: when Bromin or John were leaving the house. But this night,
Speaker 4: when he heard the noise and then he looked outside,
Speaker 4: he could see that the car didn't have the headlights
Speaker 4: on and the engine wasn't turned on either, so the
Speaker 4: car was leaving silently. But as the car went from
Speaker 4: the driveway and onto the bitchmen of the road, it scraped,
Speaker 4: So there was something Murray's surmise, that was heavier than
Speaker 4: usual in the boot of the car, and the boot
Speaker 4: scraped the bitchermen and left a groove in the bitchmen.
Speaker 4: And then the car rolled silently down the hill of
Speaker 4: Sandstone Crescent until it got to the bottom, and the
Speaker 4: car then stopped and the engine was turned the lights
Speaker 4: were turned on, and the car drove away. So it
Speaker 4: was a very unusual way for the car to leave
Speaker 4: the house. Murray hadn't seen that before.
Speaker 1: That was about twenty minutes to eleven pm. On that
Speaker 1: Sunday night. We know that Bromwin was never seen again,
Speaker 1: and one thing we don't know is whether she was
Speaker 1: in that car when it departed. John Winfield has told
Speaker 1: the police that he left the house that night with
Speaker 1: the couple's two young daughters and drove to Sydney after
Speaker 1: he says Bromwin left the house and got into a
Speaker 1: car with someone he didn't know. What have police thought
Speaker 1: over the years about what was going on inside that car?
Speaker 4: Headley Well, The police theory is that Bromwin's body was
Speaker 4: probably in the boot of that vehicle. John emphatically denies that,
Speaker 4: and he says that Bromwin had left about an hour earlier,
Speaker 4: and that was because a car driven by an unknown
Speaker 4: person had pulled up and she'd got in it to
Speaker 4: go away for a break of a few days. John
Speaker 4: doesn't deny that he was driving the white Ford Falcon
Speaker 4: at that time. In fact, he admits that he was
Speaker 4: driving the vehicle because that's around the time he must
Speaker 4: have left the house to go to Sydney. He left
Speaker 4: in a hurry with his two girls at about twenty
Speaker 4: to eleven and he bought fuel at a service station
Speaker 4: in nearby Ballina, at eleven oh six pm.
Speaker 1: Coming up, what it will take for the justice system
Speaker 1: to revisit Bronwin Winfield's case. Subscribers to The Australian here
Speaker 1: knew episodes of Bronwin first. They can also read articles
Speaker 1: written about the case by Headley, as well as our
Speaker 1: National crime correspondent David Murray and senior reporter Matthew Condon.
Speaker 1: Plus subscribers get exclusive access to photos, maps, timelines and more.
Speaker 1: Check us out at the Australian dot com dot a U.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after this break. Bronwyn Winfield loved her
Speaker 1: little girls, Crystal and Lauren. They're now grown women, but
Speaker 1: they've chosen not to be interviewed for Hedley's investigation. There's
Speaker 1: good reason for that. Lauren Winfield is close to her
Speaker 1: father John. For Crystal, it's more complicated. You've spoken to
Speaker 1: Christal in the course of researching and reporting this podcast, Headley,
Speaker 1: but she hasn't been interviewed. We see in the family photos.
Speaker 1: She's a blonde little girl, obviously with a very close
Speaker 1: relationship with her mum, Bromwyn. Why hasn't Cristel wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you for this podcast?
Speaker 4: Look, I think that question is one very personal to Crystal,
Speaker 4: but from what I've understood in the conversations that We've had,
Speaker 4: as well as conversations I've had with her mother's brother
Speaker 4: and other members of Bromn's side of the family, Crystal
Speaker 4: maintains a connection with her sister, Lauren, who was five
Speaker 4: years old when Bromwyn disappeared. Kristal was only ten. She
Speaker 4: also maintains a connection with her stepfather, John, she calls
Speaker 4: John Dad, and Crystal's own biological father has been deceased
Speaker 4: for some years. There's a strong view on Broman's side
Speaker 4: of the family that Crystal is really torn and while
Speaker 4: she wants answers, she does want to upset her stepfather.
Speaker 4: She doesn't want to strain the relationship that she has
Speaker 4: with Lauren.
Speaker 1: Bronwyn Winfield story bears a striking similarity to that of
Speaker 1: Lynnette Simms, who vanished from Sydney's Northern Beaches in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two. Lynn's husband, the former rugby league star Chris Dawson,
Speaker 1: was convicted of her murder in twenty twenty, two, years
Speaker 1: after the coroner, Karl Milvanovitch recommended Dawson be prosecuted for
Speaker 1: the crime.
Speaker 6: Christopher Michael Dawson on the charge to the donor about
Speaker 6: eight January nineteen eighty two at Dayview or elsewhere in
Speaker 6: the state of New South Wales. You did murder Lynette Dawson.
Speaker 6: I find you guilty of messa doubt.
Speaker 1: Both stories fell through the cracks of a complex and
Speaker 1: opaque criminal justice system. Dawson is now appealing his conviction,
Speaker 1: which came after Headley's twenty eighteen podcast investigation The Teacher's Pet,
Speaker 1: shed fresh light on what had happened four decades ago.
Speaker 1: You always go into these podcast investigations Heady with the
Speaker 1: goal of getting some answers potentially solving a crime. As
Speaker 1: I said, you're getting contacted by people who knew Bromwin
Speaker 1: via that email Addre Bromwin at the Australian dot com
Speaker 1: dot what's needed for this case to progress beyond where
Speaker 1: it is now, which is the DPP in New South
Speaker 1: Wales declining to prosecute John Winfield.
Speaker 4: I think all of these cold cases always require fresh
Speaker 4: sets of eyes to review them, and that goes for
Speaker 4: the office of the DPP as well. There's a lot
Speaker 4: to be critical of the police about in this case
Speaker 4: because for the first five years they really did a
Speaker 4: terrible job and failed to act on a lot of
Speaker 4: red flags suggesting that Bromwin would not have voluntarily just
Speaker 4: abandoned her children, her house, her job, her friends and
Speaker 4: home to start some new life. That wasn't plausible to
Speaker 4: people who knew Bromwan back then, and it looks much
Speaker 4: less plausible now in the context of a relationship that
Speaker 4: was falling apart at that time. And the police, when
Speaker 4: they came on board, did do a much more thorough
Speaker 4: job with this case and took it to a coronial proceeding,
Speaker 4: and then there was a finding by a coroner, and
Speaker 4: then there was subsequent investigations by police. While all of
Speaker 4: that was going on, the DPP declined to prosecute. But
Speaker 4: what we don't know in all of these sorts of
Speaker 4: considerations is whether the DPP has made its decision correctly,
Speaker 4: whether it's made its decision based on all the information
Speaker 4: and understanding of the case that they could possibly have,
Speaker 4: or whether the decision was made in error. And the
Speaker 4: reason we don't know is because that process is always concealed.
Speaker 4: It's an opaque process. It's not transparent. There isn't any
Speaker 4: way for victims or for police to properly understand why
Speaker 4: apart from the blanket statement of insufficient evidence, these cases
Speaker 4: don't run. Now with the benefit of hindsight looking at
Speaker 4: all of the statements and evidence and new evidence that's
Speaker 4: available that the DPP was probably not aware of at
Speaker 4: the time. It's the kind of case that you think, well,
Speaker 4: is someone considering it again and looking and wondering whether
Speaker 4: this could be another case like Lynn's case involving her husband,
Speaker 4: Chris Dawson, which should have been prosecuted way back in
Speaker 4: the eighties or nineties, and when it was properly considered
Speaker 4: again in twenty twenty two, it led to a prosecution.
Speaker 1: Hilly Thomas is the Australian's National Chief correspondent and the
Speaker 1: creator of the Bronwyn Podcast. Episode four is live for
Speaker 1: subscribers now at bronwynpodcast dot com. That's bronwynpodcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on the front this week. Our
Speaker 1: team is Kristen Amier, Joshua Burton, Leott Sammaglue, Jasper League,
Speaker 1: Tiffany Demac, Matthew Condon and me Claire Harvey.