Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 2: verdicts against all three defendants. It was absolutely shambles, to
Speaker 2: tell you the truth, just absolutely really heaving blood on
Speaker 2: his clothing the day after the alleged top.
Speaker 1: On a shallow mud bank and it fits through a river.
Speaker 3: Basically, I think most of the people are used.
Speaker 1: To me, there are good people. I think a really
Speaker 1: important question we need to ask is how many Indigenous
Speaker 1: prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 2: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the
Speaker 2: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 2: our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm
Speaker 2: Amy maguire and I'm.
Speaker 1: Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service.
Speaker 1: And a warning, this series contains the names of deceased
Speaker 1: peoples and has distressing content that might upset some listeners.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Curtin the podcast. This week, I'm going to
Speaker 3: begin the episode by reading the opening paragraphs of an
Speaker 3: article written by my co host Amy McGuire in December
Speaker 3: late last year. For those who want to read the
Speaker 3: entire article, it's on Amy's substack, and I'll provide the
Speaker 3: links on Curtain's social media pages, or you can just
Speaker 3: search Amy McGuire substack dot com. The opening paragraph begins
Speaker 3: today is a short article on two inquests that I'm
Speaker 3: hoping to pay attention to over the coming months. Both
Speaker 3: cases involve Aboriginal women who have disappeared and have not
Speaker 3: yet been found. I've chosen the word disappeared deliberately. In
Speaker 3: the absence of knowing. We have to be careful with language,
Speaker 3: especially as inquests and investigations are still underway. For mine,
Speaker 3: disappeared is still an active word, while murdered is closed.
Speaker 3: Disappeared means not placing culpability back on the victim when
Speaker 3: we do not know the circumstances of their disappearance. But
Speaker 3: unlike missing, there remains an active person or structure that
Speaker 3: could be culpable or responsible for their disappearance. In the
Speaker 3: absence of knowing, we must find a way to describe
Speaker 3: this situation that leaves it open for any avenue of
Speaker 3: justice and supports the family in whatever fight they wish
Speaker 3: to wage on their loved ones. Behalf now, as I said,
Speaker 3: that's an article that you can go and read on
Speaker 3: Amy's substack and prior to Amy writing that piece. We
Speaker 3: actually had a very lengthy discussion. As we have explained,
Speaker 3: as we often do about these issues and have done
Speaker 3: over the last six years of making Curtain and working
Speaker 3: on Kevin's case and a host of other cases and
Speaker 3: working with families. That what you hear is just a
Speaker 3: very distilled sample of what we discuss in the background
Speaker 3: when working and as Amy described, using the word disappeared
Speaker 3: was a very deliberate choice. And so today I want
Speaker 3: to introduce you to a case that Amy goes on
Speaker 3: to write about in that article and involves an inquest
Speaker 3: that Amy attended. Now that is the case of a
Speaker 3: twenty four year old Monique Club, an Aboriginal woman who
Speaker 3: was last seen at Benlee Station in Brisbane on the
Speaker 3: twenty second of June twenty thirteen. That in quest has
Speaker 3: since concluded, and since then both Amy and I have
Speaker 3: spoken to Miss Club's family. Amy has begun work on
Speaker 3: a number of articles on Miss Clubs disappearance, and I
Speaker 3: have undertaken to work and assist the family in whatever
Speaker 3: way I can to help find Miss Club and find
Speaker 3: answers as to exactly what happened. I'll begin by reading
Speaker 3: the conclusion to the inquest, and then I intend this
Speaker 3: episode purely to be for information about Miss Club's disappearance
Speaker 3: and as some background, And in future episodes, I'll talk
Speaker 3: to Amy about the inquest itself and what it was
Speaker 3: like to attend. We will speak about what the family
Speaker 3: have undertaken over the years to find her, and then
Speaker 3: I hope we can begin to bring you progress as
Speaker 3: we discover more information and as I investigate and try
Speaker 3: and get answers for the family. So the Corners report
Speaker 3: at the end of the inquest simply reads the identity
Speaker 3: of the deceased Monique Irone Club, how she died, undetermined
Speaker 3: place of death. I find that Miss Club probably died
Speaker 3: in Benley or in the Brisbane area, and the date
Speaker 3: of death. Miss Club died on or soon after the
Speaker 3: twenty second of June twenty thirteen. So following all these
Speaker 3: years of waiting, and one can only imagine the anguish
Speaker 3: that Miss Club's family, her siblings and her mother, Sheena,
Speaker 3: who I've had the honor of talking to and about
Speaker 3: her life and also about her disappearance in the aftermath,
Speaker 3: and the anguish that they've all been through over these years.
Speaker 3: Every single day to then also sit through an inquest
Speaker 3: and hear a lot of highly unpleasant details and also
Speaker 3: here from witnesses, here from police, and then to find
Speaker 3: that how she died can't be determined, that her place
Speaker 3: of death in Lee or the Brisbane area. We're talking
Speaker 3: about a major capital city. It is a very large area,
Speaker 3: and even the date can't be determined. These are not answers.
Speaker 3: This is not a conclusion in any means. And given
Speaker 3: that Miss Club has never been found, clearly the family
Speaker 3: can't rest until they have answers, until they at the
Speaker 3: very least can lay her to rest, how can they
Speaker 3: ever even begin to commence the grieving process. And so
Speaker 3: I think at the very beginning of this, we're actually
Speaker 3: starting at the conclusion of the inquest findings and just
Speaker 3: how open these are, how they really provide no answers whatsoever,
Speaker 3: and in terms of how Monique may have died, where
Speaker 3: she could possibly be and when this occurred. And now
Speaker 3: I want to break down some of the details of
Speaker 3: this in quest. So to give you a very quick background,
Speaker 3: Monique left Harvey Bay for an unplanned trip with a
Speaker 3: number of friends and they drove together to the greater
Speaker 3: Brisbane area. Miss Club had been in a very serious
Speaker 3: accident and suffered really horrible injuries in the years prior
Speaker 3: to her disappearance, and was struggling with the use of painkillers.
Speaker 3: As many people will know, the over prescription of the
Speaker 3: drug fentanyl is something that has been analyzed lot in
Speaker 3: the media, particularly in America where it's a huge issue,
Speaker 3: and somewhat in Australia where it's been raised on where
Speaker 3: it's been raised in media like Four Corners, where even
Speaker 3: paramedics have struggled with its misuse. It is highly addictive,
Speaker 3: the withdrawals are awful, and this is a drug that
Speaker 3: is often wrongly prescribed, should never have been prescribed in
Speaker 3: the first place, and often requires serious impatient support to
Speaker 3: assist someone to come off the drug and to rebuild
Speaker 3: their life afterwards. This is of course no fault of
Speaker 3: the patient. This is a substance that was prescribed to
Speaker 3: them because of serious pain. In Miss Club's case, because
Speaker 3: of a serious accident that had left her with very
Speaker 3: hard to live with injuries that were causing her a
Speaker 3: great deal of pain, and she was simply trying to
Speaker 3: navigate life as best as possible. So while in Brisbane,
Speaker 3: Miss Club attended a medical practice where she was prescribed
Speaker 3: five high dose ventanyl patches and fifty diazepam tablets that's valium.
Speaker 3: The coroner found that the prescribing of the patches and
Speaker 3: the diazepam was inappropriate. It was also noted that the
Speaker 3: medical records at that practice stated that Miss Club should
Speaker 3: not be prescribed opioid based or synthetic pain relief of
Speaker 3: such an addictive and strong nature, and yet it was
Speaker 3: given to her anyway. It was then dispensed by a
Speaker 3: nearby pharmacist where Miss Club obtained only the ventanyl patches,
Speaker 3: and then after which she went into a nearby shop.
Speaker 3: She was in a shopping center and was asked to leave.
Speaker 3: It's not possible to ascertain whether this was because of
Speaker 3: her behavior. It could have been racial profiling. We really
Speaker 3: can't tell. But a security guard was called. He didn't
Speaker 3: believe that Miss Club was any trouble at all, and
Speaker 3: he witnessed her leave the shopping center. She was quite
Speaker 3: in the distance at this point and that she'd walked
Speaker 3: into a park and that's where he last saw her.
Speaker 3: And he said that she seemed uninjured and okay, but
Speaker 3: that's where she was last seen. And he was the
Speaker 3: last person to see her. Miss Club then failed to
Speaker 3: make contact with her mother, who she would be in
Speaker 3: regular contact daily contact with via her telephone, and her
Speaker 3: mother immediately filed a missing person's report with the police
Speaker 3: in Harvey Bay, where Miss Club was from and where
Speaker 3: her mother lived, and then the police investigation began. Immediately,
Speaker 3: the police assumed something that I think we can all
Speaker 3: probably guess and that you've heard many times in this
Speaker 3: podcast before. They assumed Miss Club was drunk. She was not,
Speaker 3: and the coroner stated that this finding, this assumption by
Speaker 3: the police was inconsistent with the evidence. Well, not only
Speaker 3: is it inconsistent with the evidence, it's another example of
Speaker 3: the endless racism of the police around this country, where
Speaker 3: anytime an Aboriginal person is in trouble, the police simply
Speaker 3: assume they're drunk, and as you've heard throughout the years
Speaker 3: of this podcast, so often, this is simply not the case,
Speaker 3: and in Miss Club's case, it was just not true.
Speaker 3: So the police investigation then commences a on a wrong footing.
Speaker 3: I also believe that based on evidence, you will hear
Speaker 3: shortly that the police had, once again, as they often do,
Speaker 3: assume that she'd gone walk about and that she would
Speaker 3: be found or returned home, which obviously did not happen,
Speaker 3: and these were based on pure assumptions and without ascertaining
Speaker 3: the facts at all. In fact, the coroner slam Queensland
Speaker 3: Police for its shambolic response to Miss Club's disappearance. There
Speaker 3: was also a great deal of confusion as to which
Speaker 3: police officer officer and from what unit was leading the investigation.
Speaker 3: This resulted in a number of critical delays and incorrected
Speaker 3: tactical decision making in the field, which resulted in huge
Speaker 3: gaps in the investigation and of may, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: have resulted in the fact that Miss Club was not
Speaker 3: found in those early days. Some of those mistakes and
Speaker 3: some of the lack of direction include the fact that
Speaker 3: police search and Rescue determined that Miss Club was not
Speaker 3: in the park where she was last seen. Police, however,
Speaker 3: concluded that Miss Club had died in the park based
Speaker 3: on the wrong assumption that she was intoxicated, perhaps under
Speaker 3: the influence of drugs. This was not consistent with the
Speaker 3: statement of the security guard, who was both reliable at
Speaker 3: the time and reliable at the inquest, and was the
Speaker 3: last person to see Miss Club alive. Miss Club was
Speaker 3: an active user of her mobile phone, both in making
Speaker 3: calls to friends, family, people she knew, people she was around,
Speaker 3: and yet police did not ascertain all of the available
Speaker 3: call logs. They obtained some but not all in the
Speaker 3: case of some witnesses and some people who may have
Speaker 3: had further information as to where Miss Club might be
Speaker 3: people who had been in her company. The police obtained
Speaker 3: call logs, for example incoming calls, but not outgoing calls.
Speaker 3: They could have missed vital and probably did miss vital information.
Speaker 3: Another issue was that no triangulation of Miss Club's telephone
Speaker 3: was performed. This would have allowed police to potentially locate
Speaker 3: the phone locate if they could not locate the phone,
Speaker 3: find the location of where it was last on and used,
Speaker 3: and possibly even located Miss Club. They did not perform
Speaker 3: this for two reasons. One they didn't believe that it
Speaker 3: meant the threshold, that is, that is, Miss Club's disappearance
Speaker 3: did not meet their threshold of her being in grave
Speaker 3: or imminent danger or at risk ridiculous. The other issue
Speaker 3: was cost. Now we understand the cost would have been
Speaker 3: about five hundred dollars and Queensland Police decided that was
Speaker 3: too much money to expend for the life of an
Speaker 3: Aboriginal woman. The police did also not access all of
Speaker 3: the available CCTV in the area. They did review CCTV
Speaker 3: at the closest train station, but police can't say which
Speaker 3: police viewed this CCTV footage, for how long it was viewed,
Speaker 3: or where the notes are and what happened to those notes,
Speaker 3: nor what those notes say. One officer admitted during the
Speaker 3: coronial inquest that the CCTV was in the possession of
Speaker 3: the QPS, but they couldn't find it, and admitted that
Speaker 3: guidelines had not been followed. What we do know from
Speaker 3: the CCTV footage that was seen is that miss Club
Speaker 3: was last seen on CCTV at Binley Station. This footage
Speaker 3: from the train station could have provided vital information as
Speaker 3: to her next movement and possible whereabouts, but the CCTV
Speaker 3: was not viewed for long enough to determine whether she
Speaker 3: got onto a train or not. This is crucial. Had
Speaker 3: she got onto a train, then the police could have
Speaker 3: looked at which train line it was they knew based
Speaker 3: on the station she was at, and reviewed the CCTV
Speaker 3: of all potential future stops along that line. Then they
Speaker 3: could determine exactly where she got off, if she was
Speaker 3: met by someone, and then review CCTV footage in that
Speaker 3: location for further information. Had that CCTV footage revealed that
Speaker 3: Miss Club had not got on the train, A, it
Speaker 3: would have told them she'd remained in that bin Lee area,
Speaker 3: and B they could have then reviewed CCTV footage both
Speaker 3: public and private, from private businesses, petrol stations, local libraries,
Speaker 3: shopping centers, pharmacies and scene. Did Miss Club get into
Speaker 3: a vehicle with someone? Did she meet someone? Could they
Speaker 3: view the license plate of a car she got into,
Speaker 3: none of which we will ever know, A because they
Speaker 3: didn't view the CCTV properly and B the CCTV that
Speaker 3: was collected was not stored to their own guidelines. There
Speaker 3: was also a serious lack of oversight, and this goes
Speaker 3: to a slightly complex issue. But the ELDE of this
Speaker 3: investigation was taken by Harvey Bay, which is hours away
Speaker 3: from Brisbane where Miss Club went missing. Now, say I'm
Speaker 3: from Canberra and I go visit Melbourne and I go
Speaker 3: missing in Melbourne, why on earth would the Canberra Police
Speaker 3: be tasked with finding me. It's not their patch, they
Speaker 3: don't They're not there physically, they don't know the ground,
Speaker 3: they don't know who to speak to. Once again, I
Speaker 3: absolutely believe this was a case of police assuming that
Speaker 3: Miss Club had gone walk about like they always do
Speaker 3: when someone who is Aboriginal goes missing, just as they
Speaker 3: did when Colin Walker Craig, one of the beautiful young
Speaker 3: Aboriginal children who was murdered in and around Bauerville in
Speaker 3: the nineties and for whom the families have never had justice.
Speaker 3: These are the same wrong assumptions that police make.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: There are also further issues assigned as the lead investigator
Speaker 3: was a senior constable. As we've seen with recent high
Speaker 3: profile missing persons cases of non Indigenous people, enormous numbers
Speaker 3: of detectives are assigned to the case and huge amounts
Speaker 3: of resources are put into these cases, not for Aboriginal people,
Speaker 3: and not for Miss Club, who had a senior constable
Speaker 3: assigned to her case. This senior constable's report contained a
Speaker 3: huge number of errors. When an oversight report was carried
Speaker 3: out by a detective senior sergeant, they admitted at the
Speaker 3: coronial investigation that their review did not involve any reinvestigation
Speaker 3: of the matter. They simply relied on the original report
Speaker 3: supplied by the senior Constable, and so that detective senior
Speaker 3: sergeant's report, and remember Miss Club has never been found.
Speaker 3: So this is an ongoing case of a woman who
Speaker 3: is disappeared and could very well have been murdered, and
Speaker 3: yet this detective senior sergeant's report, same mistakes. Now, one
Speaker 3: of the things that was raised throughout the coronial inquest,
Speaker 3: one of the things that's been mentioned in the media
Speaker 3: by academics, by alleged experts, that this all has to
Speaker 3: do with training, the following of procedures, that training manuals
Speaker 3: be updated, That there was confusion about delegation of responsibilities,
Speaker 3: about a lack of information sharing between search and rescue
Speaker 3: missing persons units and the regular police. But let's be
Speaker 3: honest what it really is. It's not any of those things.
Speaker 3: They could have been solved decades ago when these errors
Speaker 3: were first point out out. The answer to what happened
Speaker 3: is very simple. The police did not give a shit,
Speaker 3: and based on their racism, they assumed wrongly that Miss
Speaker 3: Club was intoxicated, They assumed wrongly that she was in
Speaker 3: that park, they assumed wrongly that she'd simply gone walk about,
Speaker 3: and they assumed wrongly that she would simply go home
Speaker 3: at some point the in between, of which they had
Speaker 3: no care. All these mistakes mean that we are left
Speaker 3: in the same position the family was when Miss Club's
Speaker 3: mother first reported her missing, with no new information as
Speaker 3: to where she might be, what has happened to her,
Speaker 3: and who might have been involved in her disappearance or
Speaker 3: potential murder. These are all issues we will explore in
Speaker 3: the future. There are people who were around Miss Club
Speaker 3: at the time who had the motive, the opportunity, and
Speaker 3: the potential to murder her. This was never taken serious
Speaker 3: seriously by the police. New information about this came to
Speaker 3: light somewhat in the coronial inquest, but despite all of this,
Speaker 3: no real active investigation continues. As Amy's article points out,
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen was not just a year that Miss Club disappeared.
Speaker 3: Another Aboriginal woman in Queensland disappeared that year too. She
Speaker 3: too was most likely, I would say almost certainly murdered.
Speaker 3: She too has never been found. Her family was let
Speaker 3: down by the Queensland Police Department in the same ways.
Speaker 3: So we'll be back very soon with a future episode
Speaker 3: of Curtin the podcast, where I hope to bring you
Speaker 3: more information where I'll speak to Amy about what it
Speaker 3: was like to attend the inquest, what it was like
Speaker 3: to hear this new information come forward, and hear the
Speaker 3: realization that this was not simply a missing person's case,
Speaker 3: but that Miss Club could very well have been murdered
Speaker 3: and most of all in the background. We will be
Speaker 3: working to do what we can to assist the family,
Speaker 3: to find answers to find Miss Club, and to give
Speaker 3: her family the chance to lay her to rest.