Speaker 1: This podcast contains information and details relating to suicide. We
Speaker 1: urge anyone struggling with their emotions to contact Lifeline on
Speaker 1: thirteen eleven fourteen thirteen eleven fourteen or visit them at
Speaker 1: lifeline dot org dot au. A twenty four year old
Speaker 1: devoted mother of two fleeing a violent relationship as a
Speaker 1: mom bags pack car running her daughters strapped into the backseat.
Speaker 1: Mom told me that she needed to go back inside
Speaker 1: to grab something. Panic.
Speaker 2: Amy is dead, sir By Amy's Dead?
Speaker 1: Eight Confusion World.
Speaker 3: About five minutes they said, N's a suicide.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent.
Speaker 4: This is immersing.
Speaker 1: What do you think is really the honest truth about Amy?
Speaker 3: The Truth About Amy?
Speaker 1: Episode eighteen. Hi, I'm Liam Bartlett and.
Speaker 5: I'm Alison Sandy.
Speaker 2: Hillo.
Speaker 5: Nancy, Oh, you're looking so beautiful. I'm filming already. I'm sorry,
Speaker 5: but you know it's a hungry beast. Nancy, it's all
Speaker 5: It's so good to see you looking so well. On
Speaker 5: my recent visit to Perth, I had the pleasure of
Speaker 5: catching up with Amy's mum and best friend Nancy Kirk
Speaker 5: and Aaron Gower.
Speaker 6: How are you guys feeling after everything in this whole
Speaker 6: like avalanche of publicity, and you know that's light, I suppose,
Speaker 6: and the podcast and everything on top of it.
Speaker 2: Well, I had a lady come up to me the
Speaker 2: other week at work. I was helping her and then
Speaker 2: she's gone to the counter bought her stuff and the
Speaker 2: woman I was working with said my name, like olled out, Nancy.
Speaker 2: Can you just have a look at the price for this?
Speaker 2: I said, you was, And as she was walking out,
Speaker 2: she said, oh, you're related to Amy Wensley. I said, now,
Speaker 2: I'm her mother, And I don't know what it was.
Speaker 2: It was just I must have been happened one of
Speaker 2: them days, and I couldn't help. I'd just started tearing up.
Speaker 2: And she said, yeah, one hundred behind hers. You know,
Speaker 2: Amy didn't die, and it was nice, it was it
Speaker 2: was nice, but I sort of yeah, and I just
Speaker 2: teared up, and I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 5: What's a lot I mean? And I don't want to
Speaker 5: dwell on that because I know how it makes you feel.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I completely understand. There is nothing worse than
Speaker 5: what you've been through, like for me, for you know,
Speaker 5: like a week as mums. We're all mums, right, Nothing
Speaker 5: worse than losing the child so and then having to
Speaker 5: fight for justice.
Speaker 2: I think that's the hardest. Like I was talking today
Speaker 2: yesterday and I told her I was coming to meet
Speaker 2: you when you're going to be here, and she goes, oh,
Speaker 2: I said, why did you want to come? She got
Speaker 2: no thanks, So okay, she goes, Oh, I wish you
Speaker 2: will just hurry up and finish. Yeah, Johanna, she goes,
Speaker 2: I said, I just need to hurry up. She goes,
Speaker 2: I hate saying you like this every time something comes
Speaker 2: up because it messes with your head. Then she goes,
Speaker 2: I don't like it. So I just felt so nice.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's I think the sad thing. And they talk
Speaker 5: about it being dredged up again as though like we
Speaker 5: can help that, you know, like if it was dealt
Speaker 5: with properly in the first place.
Speaker 2: That's right, we wouldn't be doing all this and we're
Speaker 2: reliving every single time.
Speaker 5: One of the things that came up lim is how
Speaker 5: victims and their families are treated after the investigation of
Speaker 5: a loved one has been botched compared to that of
Speaker 5: witnesses and persons of interest.
Speaker 2: I don't understand how Aaron Tash, myself, what we've seen
Speaker 2: what we've heard out of AIM's mouth. Then this look
Speaker 2: at David, Gareth and what's the other one, Josh them
Speaker 2: through their stories aren't consistent at all. I can't remember
Speaker 2: and I can't remember. I forgot where we can tell
Speaker 2: you exactly what we've said at the Coroner's Court twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one. I can remember that phone call. I can't
Speaker 2: get that out of my head, her voice. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to forget that. I yes, I can't remember bits
Speaker 2: and paces.
Speaker 5: The shock when you're in shock.
Speaker 2: Right when I got to the house after David said
Speaker 2: that to me, I remember bits and paces. I don't
Speaker 2: remember bits and paces when I got home, but that
Speaker 2: phone call, what she said to me, I'll never forget.
Speaker 4: The other week, I was thinking that that's one of
Speaker 4: the frustrating things about it is that we're constantly thinking
Speaker 4: about what information can we get out there about people,
Speaker 4: like where's David at now in his life, or what's
Speaker 4: he doing? When does he have caught and all these things,
Speaker 4: and we don't really get to just focus on just
Speaker 4: thinking about Amen, just because how she was as a
Speaker 4: person and who she was and all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 4: and just enjoying or remembering her life.
Speaker 3: We're just focusing on this bad no part of it.
Speaker 2: It's like I can't even enjoying a grandmother and that's
Speaker 2: what I missed. I miss those faint cads on with
Speaker 2: Iman soon, right, I haven't the girls? Yeah tonight, I
Speaker 2: can't do and I miss that. I like it. I
Speaker 2: don't feel like Ann a grandmother to them girls. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and just shouldn't have to.
Speaker 5: And how the system isn't just geared against them, but
Speaker 5: also the people who try to help them. I then
Speaker 5: tell Nancy and Aaron about former detective Anne Lahane, who
Speaker 5: we discussed in episode sixteen, and how she was reprimanded
Speaker 5: for not falling in behind the decision from Major Crime
Speaker 5: that Amy suicided.
Speaker 2: God, but why is she getting reprimanded when the two
Speaker 2: detectives still had their freaking jobs.
Speaker 4: How do they have the authority to tell her to
Speaker 4: do that?
Speaker 5: Well, they don't, but she got reprimanded and then she
Speaker 5: was seen as.
Speaker 6: Not being a team player.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. But aren't the uniformed police officers their
Speaker 2: colleagues as well.
Speaker 3: They're not detectives.
Speaker 2: And they do freaking better job.
Speaker 4: Why has there not been that pressure to get more answers.
Speaker 2: It's costing the government more now looking into Amy's case
Speaker 2: now from what it would have if they've done their
Speaker 2: job properly that night. I just hope this new cold
Speaker 2: case term are a lot sorr and a lot better
Speaker 2: than the last one. God, I hope they do the
Speaker 2: right thing this time, by Amy, by Amy's daughters.
Speaker 4: Well, they say it themselves now advertised as a homicide.
Speaker 5: Think, yeah, so homicide investigations. Yeah, that's why she needs
Speaker 5: now where they say they've got enough information for enough
Speaker 5: evidence to prosecute.
Speaker 6: I mean, what do you think of it?
Speaker 4: It's a no brainer they definitely do, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: Just like he grabbed Amy Boger's throat, he threw her
Speaker 2: on the ground. That came out of Amy's mouth to me.
Speaker 2: That's when I told Amy pack, yes, stuff, you and
Speaker 2: the girls get down here now. And then that happens.
Speaker 2: She was hysterical. She couldn't hardly talk properly, she was
Speaker 2: that hysterical. But I got her to calm down and yes, mom,
Speaker 2: I'll be there soon, put her girls in the car.
Speaker 4: And all the evidence shows that she was an attentive mum.
Speaker 4: She wasn't just like a young mom that just doesn't
Speaker 4: really worry about their kids and just lets them go.
Speaker 2: She would follow schools to the school. When they first
Speaker 2: started catching a bus to school, she would follow the
Speaker 2: bus to school to make sure they got off the
Speaker 2: bus and walking to the school, and she would follow
Speaker 2: the bus after school. She've done that for about a
Speaker 2: week to make sure her girls were safe on the bus.
Speaker 5: I don't know about you, Lamb, but what bothers me
Speaker 5: the most is how little power victims and their families
Speaker 5: have in the event authorities decide.
Speaker 3: It's all just too hard.
Speaker 5: As mentioned by the New South Wales Crime Commissioner Michael
Speaker 5: Barnes last season, if the DPP doesn't decide to prosecute,
Speaker 5: there's no review process.
Speaker 1: It's an all or nothing situation, isn't it. Al It's
Speaker 1: very final, and the families of victims must really feel that.
Speaker 1: I think you'd have to do the old walk a
Speaker 1: mile in my shoe routine to fully understand how they
Speaker 1: must feel. But it's almost how can I put it,
Speaker 1: It's almost a godlike sort of system, isn't it in
Speaker 1: that respect? Because that's it. The final word is the
Speaker 1: final word. But the final word comes very early. I
Speaker 1: think in the process. There's no checks and balances. You
Speaker 1: just have to rely on the system, like you're in
Speaker 1: the hands of the system full stop, and you just
Speaker 1: have to trust that everyone along the line, and it's
Speaker 1: a very short line, has done their job properly, due
Speaker 1: diligence and with enough verve and vigor to come to
Speaker 1: the right decision. And I say that because you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's under pressure. There's budget tree pressures, there's resource pressures.
Speaker 1: Everyone in those offices is under a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: because they do do a lot of very good work.
Speaker 1: And we're the first to acknowledge that. But that's it.
Speaker 1: That's the sort of the Office of the High and Mighty. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, just to provide our listeners with context, I've
Speaker 1: gone back and had a look at the WA Director
Speaker 1: of Public Prosecutions Act nineteen ninety one and his role.
Speaker 1: The DPP's role is very expansive, includes commencing or conducting, quote,
Speaker 1: the prosecution of any offense, whether indictable or not. Now,
Speaker 1: I won't go into all these functions bore you to death,
Speaker 1: but I thought i'd mentioned a few key ones that's
Speaker 1: relevant to the case of Amy Wensley. For example, under
Speaker 1: the Coroner's Act of nineteen ninety six. They are required
Speaker 1: to participate in inquests and with concurrence of the coroner,
Speaker 1: assist them in the proceedings. Talk more about that in
Speaker 1: a minute, because that'll become a very important point when
Speaker 1: we go to the previous coroner who had carriage of
Speaker 1: Amy's case originally. But the DPP's office also have the
Speaker 1: ability to quote, make a request in writing to an official,
Speaker 1: including the Commissioner of Police. Now that's a direct quote
Speaker 1: from the Act. I haven't added the last part. The
Speaker 1: last part reads and a member of the police force
Speaker 1: whose functions include prosecuting for or investigating offenses. Now you'll
Speaker 1: remember the statement from the office of the DPP said
Speaker 1: they had but a mere ability to advise an investigative agency,
Speaker 1: implying WA Police, and it was their decision. WA Police's
Speaker 1: decision whether to lay charges or not. However, I think
Speaker 1: they're being a bit humble here for want of a
Speaker 1: better description, because clearly the director's power from the Act,
Speaker 1: from that quote that I've just given you, extends to
Speaker 1: requesting from the Police Commissioner with the obvious expectation that
Speaker 1: he would comply for any specified information or documentation or
Speaker 1: material that the DPP thinks may be relevant if considered
Speaker 1: to bring or take over a prosecution in relation to
Speaker 1: an offense or suspected offense. Now he can also request
Speaker 1: investigation or further investigation reried out into any matter in
Speaker 1: relation to that offense or suspected offense. Again, the police
Speaker 1: commissioner must comply unless there is any other law preventing
Speaker 1: that compliance, which I would suggest to you again would
Speaker 1: be very unusual. So Robbo and sc who is the
Speaker 1: Director of Public Prosecutions in Wa, really can make the difference.
Speaker 1: I mean, he has complete power to make the difference
Speaker 1: as to whether Amy's case is brought to justice.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting again going back to that whole thing
Speaker 5: of them not having any review process for his decisions.
Speaker 5: Not even a judge gets that. It's the power that
Speaker 5: that role has the DPP has is just I just
Speaker 5: I can't quite fathom why they're allowed that level of power,
Speaker 5: given that people who you would say were more experienced,
Speaker 5: had better credentials in those top areas in Supreme Court
Speaker 5: and High Court aren't given that. I mean, well the
Speaker 5: High Court is, but that's certainly not Supreme Court. And yeah,
Speaker 5: I just it's quite surprising.
Speaker 1: Are you're right? I mean, Supreme Court judges are questioned
Speaker 1: all the time, aren't they. That's why they go to
Speaker 1: an appeals court. And then, as you say, ultimately there's
Speaker 1: the High Court. So the appeal court judges on sitting
Speaker 1: on that bench, you know, they also get scrutinized. The
Speaker 1: other interesting part about that is al is that you've
Speaker 1: got to remember that in the DPP's office, the DPP
Speaker 1: is not looking just at things that are obvious to
Speaker 1: you or me, or investigating officers information that we don't
Speaker 1: even know about. There's other variables as well. There's political
Speaker 1: variables involved in deciding whether or not a brief meets
Speaker 1: those criteria to you know, send it through to charges.
Speaker 1: There are and we've had this from a number of
Speaker 1: DPPs across the country over the years. You know, we've
Speaker 1: had comments that very truthful comments about the nature of
Speaker 1: the budget for example, and the fact that you know
Speaker 1: that particular case hasn't got a great chance of a
Speaker 1: prosecution being successful. Therefore they must spend their money where
Speaker 1: justice is also seen to be done. So there are
Speaker 1: nefarious variables involved that we may not necessarily know about
Speaker 1: or understand or have explained to us. So there's lots
Speaker 1: of things in the shadows. So it makes that lack
Speaker 1: of appeals process, I think, even even more acute.
Speaker 5: I know that Michael Barnes would really like a national
Speaker 5: campaign on this because obviously it affects all states, not
Speaker 5: just w WA. Certainly, it's interesting that part about the
Speaker 5: DPP's role in inquests as well Liam that came up
Speaker 5: in a recent interview.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we managed to track down the very first coroner
Speaker 1: who handled Amy's case, and I must say her views
Speaker 1: were very enlightening and she was very forthcoming. I thought
Speaker 1: I let our listeners be the judge. Pardon the pun,
Speaker 1: but even though she's now retired, evel and Vicker was
Speaker 1: a very experienced, accomplished, extremely knowledgeable coroner who likes Sarah Linton,
Speaker 1: who was the coroner presiding over the eventual in quest,
Speaker 1: held the same title Deputy state Coroner. And what I
Speaker 1: found most interesting is that Evelyn had a specific background
Speaker 1: in forensics, which I think provided her with a bit
Speaker 1: more understanding of their importance, especially in relation to this case. Anyway,
Speaker 1: let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We are getting acquainted,
Speaker 1: all right. Evel and thank you very much for as
Speaker 1: I said, for your time. It's really kind of you
Speaker 1: to have a chat to us. So let's go back
Speaker 1: in time a little bit. How long were you a
Speaker 1: deputy state.
Speaker 3: Coroner from about July two thousand through to June twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: That's a fair old stint. And what sort of cases
Speaker 1: were you exposed to during all that time?
Speaker 3: Well, there was only the state coroner, which then was
Speaker 3: Alista Hope and myself for a period of that time
Speaker 3: up until twenty thirteen, I think, so, I mean between
Speaker 3: us we were exposed to all the coronial cases because
Speaker 3: between the two of us we had to cover everything.
Speaker 3: Every sudden and unexpected death had to have an investigation
Speaker 3: as opposed to an inquest, So there would be an
Speaker 3: investigation and one or other us would sign off on it.
Speaker 3: So we saw accidents, homicide, well not usually homicides was
Speaker 3: after a trial, so we would get it afterwards just
Speaker 3: to do the finding, because of course we're only responsible
Speaker 3: for manner and cause of death, nothing more. So accidents, suicide,
Speaker 3: medical negligence, workplace incidents, anything where there was a death
Speaker 3: that was sudden and unexpected, even natural causes if the
Speaker 3: person was not expected to die. Therefore a doctor wasn't
Speaker 3: prepared to do a death certificate, then that would become
Speaker 3: a coronial case.
Speaker 1: So essentially, your brief was always trying to find the
Speaker 1: manner and cause of death.
Speaker 3: Well, cause of death was up to the pathologists, if
Speaker 3: you like, But then we would put the cause of
Speaker 3: death together with the surrounding evidence to give a manner
Speaker 3: of death i e. Suicide, accident, unlawful killing, those sorts
Speaker 3: of things.
Speaker 1: Yes, whatever was relatable to.
Speaker 3: The evidence about the circumstances the.
Speaker 1: Person end up being deceased one way or the other.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, was your background as a prosecutor helpful in doing
Speaker 1: that sort of coronial.
Speaker 3: Work, Yes, it was, But don't forget prosecutors beyond a
Speaker 3: reasonable doubt. Coronial is only on the balance of probabilities
Speaker 3: because prosecuting your fault finding, coronal your only fact finding. Okay,
Speaker 3: so there's kind of a difference there, But honestly, my
Speaker 3: background as a biologist was much more pertinent and helpful
Speaker 3: to me as a prosecutor and as a coroner. Having
Speaker 3: that biology physiology understanding made it a lot easier for
Speaker 3: me to understand expert evidence around whatever it was, biological
Speaker 3: or whatever it was. I really think my background as
Speaker 3: a biologist was the most useful to me both in
Speaker 3: criminal law, which I was doing and as a coroner.
Speaker 1: So that part of it is science, part of it
Speaker 1: helped enormously.
Speaker 3: Yep, hugely, absolutely hugely.
Speaker 1: But also I would imagine as a prosecutor you learned
Speaker 1: along the way how to talk to people and more importantly,
Speaker 1: how to decipher their responses in such a way where
Speaker 1: you suspected or or perhaps concluded that they were either
Speaker 1: telling the truth or leading you down another garden path.
Speaker 3: That's the forensic part, as in somebody may say something
Speaker 3: and taking it from a prosecution point of view, someone
Speaker 3: can be mistaken, but because they totally believed what they're saying,
Speaker 3: they're very credible. So they're totally credible, so they are
Speaker 3: telling the truth, okay, But they may not be reliable,
Speaker 3: and it's other evidence that will point to that. So
Speaker 3: it's not that they're intentionally misleading you, but they may
Speaker 3: have a particular memory that serves them one way. So
Speaker 3: being able to tell with someone saying the truth or
Speaker 3: not isn't actually what you're after. It's actually whether or
Speaker 3: not what they believe are the facts. Do you understand
Speaker 3: what I mean by.
Speaker 1: That, yes, But I guess that's my point. Really. Maybe
Speaker 1: I've phrased that the wrong way, being able to read
Speaker 1: the people scenario in situation.
Speaker 3: But you have to have other evidence to be able
Speaker 3: to do that. So yeah, I mean, but someone who
Speaker 3: believes they're telling the truth, even if they're mistaken, is
Speaker 3: so credible because they are telling the truth as they
Speaker 3: know it. So this thing about truth or not truth, no,
Speaker 3: not really, it's just you just know a person passionately
Speaker 3: believes what they're saying, but it may not be quite right.
Speaker 5: So again, this is a really good point ms Vicker
Speaker 5: is making. Just because someone is saying something in a
Speaker 5: way that they seem like they're telling the truth doesn't
Speaker 5: mean they actually telling the truth. It just means it's
Speaker 5: what they believe. I mean, as you know, Liam, we've
Speaker 5: both spoken to Gareth Price, and he genuinely seems to
Speaker 5: believe what he's saying. But when you point something out
Speaker 5: which is completely irrational, he just says something which is
Speaker 5: even more irrational to justify it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think too, Allison. That's the old story,
Speaker 1: isn't it. The longer you say something, no matter what
Speaker 1: it is the more you believe it, inherently it becomes
Speaker 1: your truth, as they are fond of saying these days,
Speaker 1: which is complete lunacy because there is only one truth.
Speaker 1: I mean, truth is non binary, however you carve it up.
Speaker 1: But you're right. And again this is justification of why
Speaker 1: a trial would be so critical in a case like Amy's,
Speaker 1: because it's different pressures, different rules of evidence, different rules
Speaker 1: of legal counsel being able to cross examined, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Yeah, given Evelyn's background, she is perfectly placed
Speaker 1: to to provide reasonable opinion, as I point out here,
Speaker 1: and clearly you look at the world forensically anyway.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean I think you have to. I mean
Speaker 3: I think that's what science probably teaches you. But kind
Speaker 3: of so does the law, I guess. In the criminal
Speaker 3: law area.
Speaker 1: It's long been argued, especially in Western Australia, that the
Speaker 1: Coroner's office has been understaffed, under resourced. I mean, did
Speaker 1: you find that the backlog of cases was a constant challenge.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was in a sort of way. But it's
Speaker 3: very difficult for families to understand everything that goes into
Speaker 3: making determination. You know, sometimes we wouldn't get the pathologists
Speaker 3: report for eighteen months or so, which would delay the
Speaker 3: police report. And it's not that anyone wasn't working hard.
Speaker 3: They were working very hard. It's just that some of
Speaker 3: those things take an awfully long time to clarify, like
Speaker 3: especially neuropathology. Neuropathology about if you're looking at medical issues,
Speaker 3: sometimes we just don't have the information in Australia and
Speaker 3: our pathologists would be looking to other countries to Great
Speaker 3: Britain to put information in. And then when DNA became
Speaker 3: so important, originally we weren't as expert in that as
Speaker 3: we may be now. And also the other thing that
Speaker 3: people really have to understand, and it's difficult for me
Speaker 3: because I'm not a technical person. That's kind of different
Speaker 3: from the biology side. Things have come such a long
Speaker 3: way with communication. It's very easy these days to ask
Speaker 3: someone's opinion in the States or someone's opinion in Britain
Speaker 3: if you can provide them with all the information. But
Speaker 3: it wasn't always that easy. It used to be you'd
Speaker 3: have to send them stuff and get it back and
Speaker 3: then they'd have another query, whereas now that can be
Speaker 3: done quite quickly. But there goes your backlog if you like,
Speaker 3: we're waiting for information a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: Very frustrating for the families, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, I totally accept that. And that's the
Speaker 3: other thing. If you want it done properly, then yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess it's just very hard to explain to people.
Speaker 1: You obviously relish the challenge though, as part of.
Speaker 3: That word I loved what I was doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so why did you finish up?
Speaker 3: Now, that's part of the whole coronial thing. At the
Speaker 3: time I was made a coroner, I had to be
Speaker 3: a magistrate, okay, a magistrate as a statutory appointment. And
Speaker 3: at the time I was made a magistrate, the statutory
Speaker 3: retirement age was sixty five. That was it.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay.
Speaker 3: Shortly after I hit sixty five, it was extended to seventy,
Speaker 3: but I'd already had to officially retire by that stage,
Speaker 3: so it was possible to get extensions, but you had
Speaker 3: to apply for every year to the governor, and that
Speaker 3: actually is quite tiresome, it's quite hindering. So I actually
Speaker 3: hit sixty five, so I then applied for an extension
Speaker 3: and it was just becoming difficult because of the statutory
Speaker 3: retirement age, as I say, it then changed, but that
Speaker 3: didn't save me. And also is the coronial system. You
Speaker 3: got a coronial warrant for either three years or for
Speaker 3: five years. Generally it was just renewed. Now, unfortunately, and
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's a very bad move, coroners
Speaker 3: don't have to be magistrates, which means they're very vulnerable
Speaker 3: that if they do something that is not appreciated, they
Speaker 3: may not get their warrant renewed. That sort of applied before,
Speaker 3: but because you were a magistrate, you still always had
Speaker 3: a job to go to. You could go to being
Speaker 3: an ordinary magistrate. Now if a coroner blots their copybook
Speaker 3: in some way, then they're out on the street, if
Speaker 3: you like, which makes them vulnerable politically, is all I
Speaker 3: can really say to that.
Speaker 5: That is really interesting because what evil and Vicker appears
Speaker 5: to be saying here is there's a lot of political
Speaker 5: pressure put on coroners and if they step out of
Speaker 5: line in whatever capacity that's measured, they may lose their jobs.
Speaker 5: Makes it hard to be independent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the whole point, isn't it. Of the
Speaker 1: coronial office of any sort of you know, quasi judicial
Speaker 1: office in that sense, it's supposed to be fully independent
Speaker 1: of the political process. I mean, that's what everyone thinks.
Speaker 1: I thought that. Well, yeah, that is the working assumption
Speaker 1: every day of the week. But a very interesting insight
Speaker 1: from Evelin on that subject, and back to her.
Speaker 3: Now out the state coroner is a statutory appointment. They
Speaker 3: can do that until they hit now the retirement age
Speaker 3: of seventy. But because the newer coroners are not magistrates,
Speaker 3: they're quite vulnerable to their tenure.
Speaker 1: So you got caught up by the red tape of
Speaker 1: the day.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think you can say that it's.
Speaker 1: Great shame because good coroners don't come along very often.
Speaker 3: Well, I can't answer that I did what I did
Speaker 3: to the best of my ability. Some people wouldn't approve
Speaker 3: of that, and others would. I don't know. I certainly
Speaker 3: strived to always be true to what I believed to
Speaker 3: be right, and I did that as a prosecutor too.
Speaker 5: Here Liam asked Evelin if she remembers what she thought
Speaker 5: when she first saw the file of Amy Wensley.
Speaker 1: Can you recall with any sort of clarity your first impressions.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, very clearly. I can't remember why, I asked
Speaker 3: to see the file, because that was after twenty thirteen,
Speaker 3: when we'd expanded as an office and there were then
Speaker 3: four of us. There was a new state coroner, and
Speaker 3: I don't know why that file was brought to my attention,
Speaker 3: but I did read it and my whole forensic background.
Speaker 3: To me, it was a homicide. But no, that's not
Speaker 3: even fair. It was an unlawful killing. It was an
Speaker 3: unlawful killing. All I'm saying is manner of death. To me,
Speaker 3: it was an unlawful killing. I couldn't see it as
Speaker 3: a suicide. I couldn't see it as an.
Speaker 1: Accident straight away.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean, I think forensically the photograph speaks for itself.
Speaker 3: But the difficulty we had was that the photograph was
Speaker 3: only macro blood splatter. It's not micro, which is what
Speaker 3: you need for a true determination. But even with what
Speaker 3: we had to me, it was inexplicable any other way.
Speaker 3: That is not the situation for some of the other coroners.
Speaker 3: As you know, two coroners had conduct of it after me,
Speaker 3: and they didn't see it the same way, And particularly
Speaker 3: Coroneer Linton. She heard the evidence, she sat through the court.
Speaker 3: You make a determination, you said, on where you thinks
Speaker 3: are you're the trier of fact. You know, it was
Speaker 3: just different. But to me, I looked at the photograph
Speaker 3: and I wanted more information.
Speaker 1: The red flag went up straight away. Yes, So is
Speaker 1: that why you then referred the case in order to
Speaker 1: get a report from Professor Tim Ackland? Is that why
Speaker 1: you sought him out?
Speaker 3: Well, it didn't happen quite like that. I asked the
Speaker 3: police for more information, and I can't remember how that went,
Speaker 3: And at some stage I understood that Professor Ackland had
Speaker 3: been asked to look at it, and so I got
Speaker 3: counsel assisting because by eventually I decided if we won't
Speaker 3: get it get any more information, I'd have to inquest it.
Speaker 3: So before we did the inquest, I asked the person
Speaker 3: who was counsel assisting to contact Professor Ackland to ask
Speaker 3: him exactly what he had had. And he hadn't had
Speaker 3: very much, so I asked if he thought he would
Speaker 3: be able to do more with more information. So I
Speaker 3: gave him more information that was on the brief, and
Speaker 3: just before the inquest was due to go, we got
Speaker 3: his report. And as a result of his report, I
Speaker 3: thought it was highly lightly that she hadn't pulled the
Speaker 3: trigger herself, and as a result, I pulled the inquest
Speaker 3: because as a provision in the Coroners that says that
Speaker 3: if criminal proceedings are in the offing, then you can't proceed.
Speaker 3: And on what we had, I knew you couldn't charge anybody.
Speaker 3: We didn't have any information that would indicate who it
Speaker 3: might be. It was just the fact that she didn't
Speaker 3: pull the trigger herself. So I pulled it sent it
Speaker 3: to the DPP because that's what the Act required me
Speaker 3: to do, hoping that if it was from the DPP,
Speaker 3: the police may have different investigative pathways for them that
Speaker 3: were not part of what I needed to be doing.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you about that when you were
Speaker 1: looking at it. Firstly, at that time, the police had
Speaker 1: already formally investigated it at least twice on two separate occasions,
Speaker 1: arguably three, but i'm giving one of the operation.
Speaker 3: It was only twice by the time I sent it
Speaker 3: to the DPP, the original and then when I sent
Speaker 3: it back to them the cold case before we got
Speaker 3: the no no. The cold cave case came.
Speaker 1: Up, came after I went to think about operations gen D.
Speaker 3: I left being a coroner or deput state coroner. In
Speaker 3: June twenty nineteen. The inquest had been set for August
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen. I think, so I then lost conduct of
Speaker 3: the file.
Speaker 1: What I'm trying to get at is, so the police
Speaker 1: first turned up to Waitmie's house, and we have the
Speaker 1: whole charade of the detectives turning up and ruling a
Speaker 1: suicide straight away.
Speaker 3: I didn't use that term, but I did, okay.
Speaker 1: And then they write it off essentially as a suicide.
Speaker 1: But then before twenty eighteen, then it goes then it
Speaker 1: goes back to homos over the next few days to
Speaker 1: a week.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, that's ripe. Yes, yes, so that's what I'm
Speaker 3: when you go back to homicide. We went to homicide
Speaker 3: detectives of local detectives.
Speaker 1: Direct and they that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: So at the time the detective saw it, all they
Speaker 3: saw was the evidence that I had, which was one
Speaker 3: of the constables had taken photographs on his mobile. They
Speaker 3: actually saw the body, but they only had macro, no micro,
Speaker 3: and they decided on that that it was a suicide.
Speaker 1: On that basis. Yes, that was the same photos that
Speaker 1: you saw, yea, and you had the red flags go up, yep.
Speaker 3: But I understood forensic evidence. Don't forget. I mean when
Speaker 3: I first started prosecutor. Detectives, well, they are maybe, But
Speaker 3: when I first started prosecuting, you'd be amazed at the
Speaker 3: number of times the investigating officer would come in and
Speaker 3: I would say about a case, and it wasn't necessarily
Speaker 3: a murder, it could be even burglaries. I'd say, what
Speaker 3: does the forensic evidence tell you? And they looked at
Speaker 3: me as And I was one of the first prosecutors
Speaker 3: at that time for minor cases to call the forensic
Speaker 3: people in and talk to them about their evidence. Back
Speaker 3: when I started, a lot of the detectives didn't understand
Speaker 3: the value of forensic evidence, especially if it's negative. They
Speaker 3: couldn't see that negative forensic evidence was still evidence. I
Speaker 3: understood that because of my background.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 5: Liam Evelan also mentioned doing a search of the National
Speaker 5: Coronial Investigation System now as it indicates this is for
Speaker 5: the whole nation, not just WA and in twenty fourteen
Speaker 5: she couldn't find any death by suicide like this. By this,
Speaker 5: I mean with the car running, kids strapped in the
Speaker 5: back seat, bags packed, then go back inside to get
Speaker 5: something and decide no, instead of dropping her kids off
Speaker 5: to a month's first, she is going to go ahead
Speaker 5: and shoot herself in the head from a really awkward
Speaker 5: angle that requires her to contort her body painfully with
Speaker 5: her arms outstretched to the side and the gun positioned
Speaker 5: slightly downward at her temple. She clarifies it though, by
Speaker 5: noting that the database is only as good as the
Speaker 5: information put into it, and different states territories put in
Speaker 5: different amounts of data depending on their confidentiality policies and
Speaker 5: the type of data they collect in the first place.
Speaker 5: That said, I bet nothing's changed there. It's why it
Speaker 5: would be an oversight if WA police haven't consulted a
Speaker 5: suicideologist as part of the new investigation.
Speaker 1: Well, isn't that the point that Michael Barnes made last
Speaker 1: season when he said a suicideologist should be consulted. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've got to be honest, I have never heard of
Speaker 1: a suicideologist before. I didn't realize that was a specialty.
Speaker 1: But when he said that, it did make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense, didn't it. And the data they collect, obviously
Speaker 1: is all encompassing all of us would have only sort
Speaker 1: of so much exposure. I think fair to say Allison too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: suicides and the manner in which they occur. Even working
Speaker 1: in the media, the exposure is narrow, I have to say,
Speaker 1: given the scope and if we look at the national numbers,
Speaker 1: the complete toll, which is just terribly, terribly sad. But
Speaker 1: a suicide ologist specializes in that area, so surely their
Speaker 1: expertise would be heavily weighted in any evidence included in
Speaker 1: the police brief of evidence that they provide to the DPP.
Speaker 1: And here I seek further clarification on this point. So
Speaker 1: the police are saying, no, we think it's a suicide.
Speaker 1: So you look at the file with that, I take it.
Speaker 1: You correct me if I'm wrong with that notation sort
Speaker 1: of attached to it. But I didn't agree, and you
Speaker 1: didn't agree, no, so you pulled it from inquest.
Speaker 3: Now that was a bit later on. I asked them
Speaker 3: to look at other things before the inquest thing. I
Speaker 3: put it down for inquest because I wasn't going to
Speaker 3: get any further on the evidence we had. And again
Speaker 3: the difficulty we had is that there was no micro
Speaker 3: there was no micro blood spatter in analysis.
Speaker 1: So you look for more information. Ye, Hence enter Professor Tim.
Speaker 3: Acklin yes, because we weren't going to get micro because
Speaker 3: it had been destroyed because the scene was forensically cleaned.
Speaker 3: If some of the blood spatter experts had seen it
Speaker 3: had been able to do micro forensics on the blood spatter,
Speaker 3: which tells you a lot more about direction and those
Speaker 3: sorts of things. Now, to compensate for the fact we
Speaker 3: didn't have that, I had to go to someone like
Speaker 3: Professor Ackland.
Speaker 1: And when Professor Ackland comes back with his conclusion, which
Speaker 1: was very strong, that Amy did not shoot herself, that somehow,
Speaker 1: somewhere there must have been a third party involved. Is
Speaker 1: that when you sent the case to the DPP.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, I pulled the inquest and alerted
Speaker 3: the police to fact I was going to do that
Speaker 3: because they'd been organizing witnesses and things like. So I
Speaker 3: pulled the inquest and then I sent it to the
Speaker 3: DPP because on Professor Ackland's report, I was probably looking
Speaker 3: at an indictable offense. Whether or not we had a
Speaker 3: suspect was irrelevant. It was if she didn't pull the
Speaker 3: trigger herself, it may be an indoubtable offense. If it
Speaker 3: wasn't an accident, then that meant it was up to
Speaker 3: the DPP to look at it.
Speaker 1: And when you sent it to the DPP and then
Speaker 1: told the police that you'd pulled the inquest, was there
Speaker 1: any reaction from the police.
Speaker 3: No, because I had to explain to the commander why
Speaker 3: i'd done it. He came in and spoke to me,
Speaker 3: and I honestly can't remember who it was. And before
Speaker 3: I did it officially, I showed him the report and
Speaker 3: he was very good. He understood straight away what was
Speaker 3: going on. But before that I'd had discussions with various
Speaker 3: police officers as to why I didn't believe it was
Speaker 3: a suicide. I mean, I can remember at one stage
Speaker 3: getting down behind the door of my office and saying,
Speaker 3: it's just not in my view physically possible. I've got asked,
Speaker 3: have you ever handled a shotgun? Well, it just so happened. Yes,
Speaker 3: I had handled a side by side shotgun, and I
Speaker 3: was even more determined. But you know, Professor Ackland wasn't
Speaker 3: one hundred percent. But expert witnesses never are, well, most
Speaker 3: of them never are. I know we have some people
Speaker 3: who are prepared to go one hundred percent, but real
Speaker 3: experts in a criminal trial will never one hundred percent,
Speaker 3: say one thing. Professor Ackland may be prepared to you now,
Speaker 3: but that's what his report said. You're just a highly
Speaker 3: consistent You're right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So just to clarify here, I'd interviewed Professor Ackland the
Speaker 1: day before I interviewed Evil and Vicker, so I was
Speaker 1: able to tell Evelin the exact percentage that Professor Ackland
Speaker 1: attributed to that ninety five percent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I mean, that's that's the whole basis of
Speaker 3: scientific theory, is the fact that a theory is proven
Speaker 3: until another theory proves it wrong.
Speaker 1: I mean, you'd be happy to back any theory at
Speaker 1: ninety five percent?
Speaker 3: Would I personally would. But to a person who hasn't
Speaker 3: got that sort of background, maybe not. Maybe they expect
Speaker 3: the all expensive expert to say one hundred percent. And
Speaker 3: you have someone who said that.
Speaker 1: I think if we went to the races well and
Speaker 1: people told us every horse we'd back it was a
Speaker 1: ninety five percent chance when it But Evelyn remained there
Speaker 1: is circumspect.
Speaker 3: I don't go to the racist limb.
Speaker 1: Although who she recognized the weight of Professor Eckland's evidence.
Speaker 3: When I sent it to the DPP. I knew as
Speaker 3: a prosecutor on what we had at that stage, you
Speaker 3: didn't have enough evidence to charge a particular person.
Speaker 1: In which case you weren't surprised with the way I
Speaker 1: was treated at the DPP's office.
Speaker 3: But I did hope, and that was one of the
Speaker 3: reasons I got the commander in first before I officially
Speaker 3: pulled it. I did hope that, having pulled it so
Speaker 3: close to the inquest, that there may be other investigations
Speaker 3: the police would undertake. And I don't know whether they
Speaker 3: did or not. I will never know that, and I
Speaker 3: don't want to know that. But I thought that because
Speaker 3: it was now with the DPP, they might look at
Speaker 3: other avenues.
Speaker 1: Did it ever strike you as strange or surprising that
Speaker 1: the police generally held that view and didn't budge from
Speaker 1: it suicide scenario?
Speaker 3: Uh? I guess so yes. But hey, two coroners after
Speaker 3: me were also skeptical about what had happened. So I mean,
Speaker 3: I can't comment on that other than to say.
Speaker 1: Well, the final coroner, yeah, just to put the lid
Speaker 1: on that was skeptical but also suspicious because she delivered
Speaker 1: an open finding.
Speaker 3: Did deliver an open finding, but she didn't refer it
Speaker 3: to the DPP.
Speaker 5: Stopping here, LIAMB. Evelan makes a good point. Why didn't
Speaker 5: Sarah Linton refer it to the DPP. Well, I decided
Speaker 5: to follow up this with her and she pointed out
Speaker 5: there is a section in the WA Coroner's Act which
Speaker 5: stipulates that where a coroner believes an indictable offense which
Speaker 5: would be an unmawful killing, has been committed, it should
Speaker 5: be referred to the DPP, which is what she did.
Speaker 5: Coroner Linton was unsure as to what it occurred, so
Speaker 5: there was no requirement for her to refer to the DPP.
Speaker 1: Sort of swings and roundabouts, there isn't it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You'll also recall, though, in the last episode, seen as
Speaker 1: Sergeant McDonald defending their decision not to implement phone intercepts
Speaker 1: in this case because he didn't consider it to be
Speaker 1: a homicide. Yes, so again it's sort of tail wagging
Speaker 1: the dog, if I can put it that way. But
Speaker 1: surely on that basis alone, it should have been brought
Speaker 1: to the attention of the Director of Public Prosecutions at
Speaker 1: least raise the issue as a headline with the DPP
Speaker 1: to let them use their expertise in magnifying that particular
Speaker 1: part of it. So in this case, I still think
Speaker 1: very much, I firmly believe it was integral to refer
Speaker 1: it back to them just looking for additional information. Doesn't
Speaker 1: that only come about by further investigation? And isn't that
Speaker 1: largely driven by the police component of all this in
Speaker 1: this case or direction from the DPP's office, which which
Speaker 1: you know, according to one of the sections, is possible. Yep,
Speaker 1: so is it about?
Speaker 3: It was nothing I could do though, No as a coroner.
Speaker 1: That's right, you were one out in one back. But
Speaker 1: the intent, I guess, is what I'm asking you about,
Speaker 1: in terms of your opinion professional opinion.
Speaker 3: Yes, the intent of what it.
Speaker 1: Was there a lack of intent to make those things happen,
Speaker 1: to do that extra investigation, to go that extra yard.
Speaker 3: Certainly every time I asked them to do something, they
Speaker 3: did it. Originally, when I got the file, I was
Speaker 3: told there was no gunpowder residue. Okay, well I didn't
Speaker 3: believe that, so I rang up the pathologists and I
Speaker 3: didn't don't think I did. I think probably counsel assisting did.
Speaker 3: And you know, when there's a firearm involved, there's always
Speaker 3: that testing. And then I found out that it had
Speaker 3: been done, so when I asked for the results of that,
Speaker 3: it came back to me. But it also came back
Speaker 3: with an article about how unreliable gunpowder residue can be
Speaker 3: in an environment where it's been used. But once we'd
Speaker 3: done that, then I can remember a police officer saying
Speaker 3: to me, well, how do you account for the burns
Speaker 3: on her left hand? And I said, that's just as
Speaker 3: consistent with her trying to push the barrel away from
Speaker 3: herself as it is with her holding the barrel in place.
Speaker 3: So there's different interpretations of everything, but I don't have
Speaker 3: to follow that. Neither did I. And sending me the
Speaker 3: article about how unreliable gunshot residue can be was certainly
Speaker 3: information I needed to know about. And I didn't know
Speaker 3: about that before because back in the day, gunpowder residue
Speaker 3: was anything and everything, and now that's been not it's
Speaker 3: been qualified, is the best way to put it. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I certainly needed to know that as an option.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying they were trying to dissuade me, but
Speaker 3: they were making me aware of everything that they had
Speaker 3: to work with. Look, I do know that there were
Speaker 3: differences of opinion within the police. I would be dumb
Speaker 3: if I didn't think, well, it was apparent on the
Speaker 3: brief from the attending police officers to the detectives that
Speaker 3: there was a disagreement about what the evidence said, and
Speaker 3: the situation at that time was that detectives had the
Speaker 3: lead on it. So yeah, there were differences of opinion.
Speaker 1: So the open finding, yes, that was my in quest.
Speaker 1: What sort of impact does that finding have on potential
Speaker 1: criminal proceedings?
Speaker 3: It leaves it open for there to be criminal proceedings,
Speaker 3: which I would have thought is what people wanted. It
Speaker 3: was better than saying it was suicide. But even then
Speaker 3: with additional information that may I don't think that a
Speaker 3: coroner's finding has because a coroner's finding can't be used
Speaker 3: as evidence in a trial. So the coroner's finding may
Speaker 3: leave it open for cold cases, which this one has,
Speaker 3: and I think it's now being treasured as a cold
Speaker 3: case because there's always the potential that new evidence may
Speaker 3: become available, and we're seeing all the time technology changing.
Speaker 3: They used to do it through just pure DNA, Now
Speaker 3: they're using DNA with genealogy to pick people. So who
Speaker 3: knows what could happen in the future, but any coronial
Speaker 3: finding can be For instance, I've done missing persons where
Speaker 3: we had no information at all that the person was dead,
Speaker 3: and the coroner's making a finding that the person is deceased.
Speaker 3: Then sometimes after we've done that, a number of years afterwards,
Speaker 3: a bone may wash up on the shore and through
Speaker 3: DNA we find out that it belongs to that person. So, yes,
Speaker 3: that we've now got proof that the person is dead
Speaker 3: and it's probably no longer a missing person because we've
Speaker 3: got bits of a body, so that can be added
Speaker 3: to It's not a final determination. It's a fine determination
Speaker 3: for people to work with, but if more information becomes available,
Speaker 3: it's not the end of the story.
Speaker 1: So in order for the story to progress, it's really
Speaker 1: in the lap of the police, isn't it, in terms
Speaker 1: of the work that they do or that they're doing
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. Yes, in order to strengthen that brief
Speaker 1: before it goes back to the DPP. Yes, we've now
Speaker 1: got three independent expert witnesses, including Professor Eckland, who all
Speaker 1: say adamantly that Amy did not shoot herself.
Speaker 3: Yep, I'd agree with that. I've always believed that that's
Speaker 3: my belief.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering how many more expert witnesses they need.
Speaker 3: I don't think they need any more. I was surprised
Speaker 3: we had any more after Professor Eckland. However, other people
Speaker 3: didn't agree with me, so they got another expert who
Speaker 3: backed up Professor Eckland, and then I think you guys
Speaker 3: got another expert who was prepared to go even further. So, yeah, fine,
Speaker 3: but there's a huge difference between and unlawful killing or
Speaker 3: a murder and someone who pulled the trigger. What we've
Speaker 3: got is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. I believe that
Speaker 3: other people don't agree with that, but to me, we've
Speaker 3: got evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. She didn't pull the
Speaker 3: trigger herself. Some people don't agree with that, but that
Speaker 3: was probably enough for me. But that doesn't tell me
Speaker 3: who did pull the trigger, which is what you need
Speaker 3: for a criminal trial.
Speaker 1: It's interesting how personalities can change the course of justice, though,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 1: Imagine if you hadn't retired and I had stayed with you,
Speaker 1: and you'd taken it through that coronial process, we might
Speaker 1: have a different result today.
Speaker 3: You may do, but I don't think it would have
Speaker 3: served you any better. What you got was an open finding. Okay,
Speaker 3: I possibly, on the information I had at that stage,
Speaker 3: may have said an unlawful killing by personal persons undetermined.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know that's a and I
Speaker 3: don't know after i'd heard the witnesses. Don't forget I
Speaker 3: haven't heard the witnesses. Conral Linton heard all the witnesses.
Speaker 1: Yes, look, I'm being hypothetical, yeah, but based on evidence,
Speaker 1: and you're being professionally very courteous, which is admirable.
Speaker 3: Well, one thing I learned as a coroner, and I mean,
Speaker 3: don't forget we did lots of mandatory inquest deaths and
Speaker 3: custody and things like that. No one who is in
Speaker 3: the profession of a doctor, a nurse, a prison officer
Speaker 3: or a police officer actually wants someone to die. They're
Speaker 3: actually devastated if people in their care make a mistake.
Speaker 3: But everybody's human and people make mistakes, which is why
Speaker 3: I'm into fact finding and not fault finding. I'm happy
Speaker 3: to say the fact is this, but I played the ball,
Speaker 3: not the.
Speaker 1: Person even And one last thing, if I can just
Speaker 1: get you to cast your mind back as much as
Speaker 1: you can, your memory of seeing that case file talking
Speaker 1: to people dealing with people like Professor Aglin. Is there
Speaker 1: particular part of Amy's case that troubled you more than others?
Speaker 3: Look, because I'm a people person to some extent, and
Speaker 3: people will tell you this doesn't matter. First of all,
Speaker 3: I should tell you as a prosecutor, I would only
Speaker 3: say I had Of all the people I prosecuted where
Speaker 3: we got convictions, I only once or twice ever thought
Speaker 3: someone was evil. People get to a particular point in
Speaker 3: time where they do very bad things, but that doesn't
Speaker 3: necessarily make them evil. So I suppose it made me
Speaker 3: a very good cross examiner though, because I could always
Speaker 3: see things from two points of view, which meant I
Speaker 3: possibly got nearer the mark when I was cross examining,
Speaker 3: which was useful both psychologically and forensically to me. Amy
Speaker 3: wouldn't have committed suicide at that point in time. Why
Speaker 3: do you say that because of the whole psychologically I'm
Speaker 3: not supposed to take into account. But the children in
Speaker 3: the car talking to her mother, I now know, though
Speaker 3: I didn't know at the time, but I know. But again,
Speaker 3: I've not examined this forensically, the passport in the bag,
Speaker 3: all of those things to me say, psychologically, this mum
Speaker 3: was not looking to leave her children. Okay, so that's
Speaker 3: a psychological part which probably doesn't apply in a prosecution,
Speaker 3: but as a coroner, it makes some impression on me. Okay.
Speaker 3: The other thing is forensically, to me, it didn't make sense.
Speaker 3: I and all the alternatives that are put to me
Speaker 3: having hand, and I'm a lot stockier than Amy was.
Speaker 3: Amy's probably a lot lighter than I am. But and
Speaker 3: she worked out, and she was used to guns. That's
Speaker 3: the other thing. You know, people tend to use a
Speaker 3: method for suicide that they're familiar with, which is why
Speaker 3: a lot of women don't use guns in suicide. I've
Speaker 3: never heard of anyone committing suicide by physically holding a
Speaker 3: shotgun parallel to their temple. I'm not saying it's not done,
Speaker 3: but I haven't heard of that. But Amy was used
Speaker 3: to guns. Use of a gun isn't that peculiar, But
Speaker 3: just the way she was behind the door with her
Speaker 3: hand underneath her bottom, and different things happen as people
Speaker 3: relax after they die. So you've got all that forensic
Speaker 3: input as well, But to me, it was just I
Speaker 3: couldn't see how she could pull the trigger herself.
Speaker 1: So it was the totality of the scene and all
Speaker 1: the events surrounding it. Yep, it just made you think
Speaker 1: that this is just not how it happened.
Speaker 5: Yes, So what did you think of what Evil and
Speaker 5: Vicker had to say? LIAMB.
Speaker 1: I thought she was very candid. I thought she was
Speaker 1: professionally very respectful too, wasn't she even though she's retired.
Speaker 1: She's now retired. As we said at the start of that,
Speaker 1: she's a bit of a brain box, sharp, sharp as
Speaker 1: a packet of raisers, and she she still didn't hold back,
Speaker 1: but she was gracious to some of the people still
Speaker 1: involved in proceedings. And that's fair enough. That's fair enough.
Speaker 1: But I think she said what she had to say,
Speaker 1: and she got a couple of things off her chest.
Speaker 1: But they all point back to exactly what we've been
Speaker 1: talking about on this podcast, every single thing that's been
Speaker 1: said from the start by people who've got a few
Speaker 1: brains and a few clues, all the professional independent experts,
Speaker 1: all the people we've spoken to who've got credibility in
Speaker 1: the game, whether it's the legal game or you know,
Speaker 1: you know, every single person. I mean her and she
Speaker 1: was the first one on the scene from the coronial aspect,
Speaker 1: right yeah, and she knew, you know, she is completely
Speaker 1: confident Amy Wensley did not kill herself. And I thought
Speaker 1: the comments that she made not just about the forensics,
Speaker 1: although she had plenty to say about that and all
Speaker 1: the sort of scientific aspect of it, but from the
Speaker 1: attitudinal part of it, from a young mum's perspective, and
Speaker 1: also the if I can put it this way, the
Speaker 1: feminine aspect of suicide, in that you know, highly highly
Speaker 1: highly unusual, not to say it never happens, but highly
Speaker 1: unusual for anyone to kill themselves in that manner, especially
Speaker 1: with the way her life was planned, with the kids
Speaker 1: in the car, the immediate planning, the medium term planning,
Speaker 1: everything about it, everything about it. For a woman of
Speaker 1: that experience in a courtroom to say that, didn't you
Speaker 1: think that had big impact?
Speaker 5: I did. And I think the other thing is the lens.
Speaker 5: It's so the importance of the lens that people view
Speaker 5: these cases through. Right now, that was ten years ago,
Speaker 5: and the world has changed a lot, as you know,
Speaker 5: in ten years, you know, with the Me Too movement
Speaker 5: and also in relation to domestic violence people, you know,
Speaker 5: gas lighting, wasn't even a thing back then. But she
Speaker 5: wasn't looking at it from any of those I guess
Speaker 5: what you'd call emotional perspectives. She was just looking at
Speaker 5: it from a factual perspective, as was tim Ackland, Right,
Speaker 5: there was nothing else involved. The same with Larry Blamfort.
Speaker 5: You'd say the same thing, right, he was just like
Speaker 5: you just couldn't actually physically.
Speaker 1: Do that, Oh no, in fact, loud and clear, just
Speaker 1: to reinforce your opinion there. I think that's spot on,
Speaker 1: if anything evil, and it comes across a little bit
Speaker 1: cold and calculating that, that's how much she leaves out
Speaker 1: the emotional component. She only wants to deal with the facts.
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, And so I think that's the part of
Speaker 5: it as well, that you know, even if you did
Speaker 5: take into account all those you know, domestic violence, the
Speaker 5: issues that were overlooked at the time, just from that
Speaker 5: factual perspective, which is what I always thought was the
Speaker 5: I guess the biggest factor, that was the most weighty factor,
Speaker 5: which is again what tim Acklin said too, right. You know,
Speaker 5: he made it very clear that he had never had
Speaker 5: a case like this one which hadn't proceeded to a trial.
Speaker 5: Based on his evidence, his strong evidence of what he
Speaker 5: believed to be the case. As it just kind of thought, well,
Speaker 5: why did you bother getting him everyone else thereafter if
Speaker 5: you weren't going, or you'd wait for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So nobody's ever questioned tim Acklin's integrity, right, nor
Speaker 1: Evil and Vicar for that matter. So that's pause to
Speaker 1: think about that. So if tim Ackland is turning around saying,
Speaker 1: this is the only case with this sort of weight
Speaker 1: of evidence that's never gone to trial, why is that
Speaker 1: what's extraordinary about this case compared to all the other
Speaker 1: cases that tim Acklin's worked on. I mean, give me
Speaker 1: an answer for that, because I haven't got one. There's
Speaker 1: nothing in any ingredient in this case that sticks out
Speaker 1: as extraordinary. This is the interesting thing about it. So
Speaker 1: comes back to the police pushback against Evil and Vicker
Speaker 1: for example. So there you've got an incredibly experienced deputy
Speaker 1: state coroner looking at this case, going, guys, this doesn't
Speaker 1: add up. This is all wrong. The look on this
Speaker 1: is wrong, the feel on this is wrong. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you it's wrong. And yet she is still
Speaker 1: at that stage coming up against senior police who are
Speaker 1: insisting as far as we're concerned it to suicide.
Speaker 5: The other interesting thing, and I know evel And didn't
Speaker 5: make anything of this, but I thought it was interesting
Speaker 5: when she said that she asked about the gun residue, right,
Speaker 5: why there wasn't any gun residue on the hand that
Speaker 5: she would have had to have held the gun, and
Speaker 5: the police came back with a report saying how unreliable
Speaker 5: gun residue is. And you know, she sort of just said, oh, well,
Speaker 5: that they have to let me know and things like that.
Speaker 5: But I did think it's interesting that they would have
Speaker 5: come back with an excuse I suppose for that as
Speaker 5: to why, you know, they could just explain that away,
Speaker 5: but they couldn't explain this away, right, They couldn't explain
Speaker 5: the whole tim Acklin. It was always a case, which
Speaker 5: of course was supported by a detective constable and Lahane
Speaker 5: that they wanted it to be treated as non suspicious
Speaker 5: and would only look at it like.
Speaker 1: That now on that out, even Vicker was initially told
Speaker 1: there was no gun residue, remember, zero gun residue, but
Speaker 1: she didn't believe them. Also worth mentioning, I did some
Speaker 1: research and there are many more articles saying that the
Speaker 1: GSR tests are reliable and should be admitted as evidence
Speaker 1: can be admitted. However, it was clarified that the absence
Speaker 1: of gun residue doesn't mean someone didn't fire a gun,
Speaker 1: because it can easily be removed, say by washing your hands,
Speaker 1: as simple as that. But in this case, in Amy's case,
Speaker 1: she certainly didn't wash her hands.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I found that whole thing of providing Evil and
Speaker 5: Vicker with an article about how unreliable gun residue is
Speaker 5: concerning Liam. Firstly, if they were being fair, they should
Speaker 5: have also included articles arguing the positives of gun residue testing, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, there's plenty which provide a more balanced analysis.
Speaker 5: Like any testing, it's a component of the evidence requiring consideration.
Speaker 5: It's just a matter of taking that into consideration, not
Speaker 5: ruling it out entirely.
Speaker 1: No, I thought it was a bit immature, actually, to
Speaker 1: tell you the truth. In fact, I'd go so far
Speaker 1: as to say I thought it was a bit insulting
Speaker 1: to Evel and Vicker, not that she said that. I'm
Speaker 1: saying that. Yeah, I thought it was insulting to her
Speaker 1: level of expertise. I mean it was like some kid
Speaker 1: waking up in the morning, coming into the kitchen and saying, hey, Mum,
Speaker 1: you know I had a dream last night about an
Speaker 1: alien and then you provide them that afternoon with a
Speaker 1: book about how aliens don't exist. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: It was that simple as that basic. Yeah, Anyway, I digress. So,
Speaker 1: even though way Pole says it's now investigating Amy Wensley's
Speaker 1: death as a homicide, I agree with Amy's family that
Speaker 1: there should be some oversight from the Triple C just
Speaker 1: to make sure this is absolutely rock solid. Now remember
Speaker 1: the FOI the freedom of information that we got back
Speaker 1: where a senior detective claimed it's a suicide.
Speaker 5: I do because that was after they announced the reward,
Speaker 5: And this is why I sent Waypole a few more
Speaker 5: questions Liam, you know how much they love those, and
Speaker 5: asked them if they had consulted with a suicideologist. After
Speaker 5: speaking with Michael Barnes, I emailed Kyrie and I apologize
Speaker 5: if I have got the pronunciation wrong. Kri Colvez, a
Speaker 5: professor at the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention.
Speaker 5: When I gave her a summary of Amy's case, she
Speaker 5: replied that she quote very much agreed that a suicidologist
Speaker 5: should be involved in the investigation, but to do it properly,
Speaker 5: she would need access to all the police reports and evidence.
Speaker 5: She's a professional. Now, I was sure that this new
Speaker 5: Waypole Investigation would canvass this because hasn't it been the
Speaker 5: main sticking point throughout I mean, we're still talking about it.
Speaker 5: So I forwarded them doctor Colvez's email and asked them
Speaker 5: if they'd consulted her, or indeed any suicidologist. I also
Speaker 5: made point that given they sought a second opinion following
Speaker 5: doctor Ackland's report ruling out suicide, surely they do the
Speaker 5: same with the police psychologists report. Right, good point, particularly
Speaker 5: given the criticism the police psychologists got from internationally renowned
Speaker 5: criminal behavioral analyst Laura Richards. And you know what, they said, nothing.
Speaker 5: They didn't get back to me, but they indicated they would,
Speaker 5: So hopefully I'll have an update for you next week.
Speaker 1: Good good. I mean again, it's the yin and the yang,
Speaker 1: isn't it. You know, if you take one thing into account,
Speaker 1: you've got to take the other thing into account. But
Speaker 1: if you go back to basics, as the good Detective
Speaker 1: Ron Needles said to us many many episodes, ago, start
Speaker 1: with the worst case scenario and you can rarely go wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Classic statement from Ron and one that has given him
Speaker 1: an unbelievable record in solving crime. Allison, So you can't
Speaker 1: exactly say that he's got it wrong, can you.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: Next week we're going to explore the prevalence of other
Speaker 1: Australian hidden homicides.
Speaker 5: I think the toller is significantly higher, and I think
Speaker 5: it's because we just have so many deaths across Australia
Speaker 5: that are not being investigated, especially the so called suicide.
Speaker 1: Deaths, and how another family is grappling with the reluctance
Speaker 1: by authorities to make it right.
Speaker 7: He said that Courtney most likely had undiagnosed mental health issues,
Speaker 7: which was something that her partner had said that scene.
Speaker 7: Oh she's crazy, she's suicidal. She wasn't suicidal. She had
Speaker 7: rip one her life.
Speaker 1: See you next week.
Speaker 8: Out the nows you me.
Speaker 1: If you knew Amy and have information, any information about
Speaker 1: her death, we'd love to hear from you. Just email
Speaker 1: us at the Truth about Amy at seven dot com
Speaker 1: dot au. That's s e v E N The Truth
Speaker 1: about Amy at seven dot com dot Au, or visit
Speaker 1: our website sevenews dot com dot AU forward slash the
Speaker 1: Truth about Amy. You can also send us an anonymous
Speaker 1: tip at www dot the Truth about Amy dot com.
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Speaker 1: because it really helps new listeners to find us. Presenter
Speaker 1: and executive producer Alison Sandy, Presenter and investigative journalist Liam Bartlett,
Speaker 1: Sound design Mark Wright, Assistant producer Cassie Woodward, Graphics Jason Blandford,
Speaker 1: and special thanks to Brian Seymour and Jessica Evanson. This
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