Speaker 1: This podcast contains information and details relating to suicide. We
Speaker 1: urge anyone struggling with their emotions to contact Lifeline I'm
Speaker 1: thirteen eleven fourteen thirteen eleven fourteen, or visit them at
Speaker 1: lifeline dot org dot AU.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the seventh installment of the Truth About Amy Conversations.
Speaker 2: I'm Alison Sandy. I hope you're enjoying this as much
Speaker 2: as wa Police is. I'm joined by Liam Bartlett Mourning.
Speaker 1: Liam, hi el, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm very well. I'm afraid Tim Clark is still stuck
Speaker 2: in his trial. So is an apology this week. But
Speaker 2: today we are joined by our very special guest, doctor
Speaker 2: Zanthe Mallet. Xanthe Mallett is an Associate professor at Newcastle
Speaker 2: University School of Law and Justice. A criminologist and forensic anthropologist,
Speaker 2: Zanthy is devoted defining the truth. Welcome to our conversations. Hello,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining us, Anthy. Now, according
Speaker 2: to Wikipedia, for.
Speaker 1: Such a little bit of research on you, that's dangerous.
Speaker 3: I would be telling my students off with those very well,
Speaker 3: let's see what Wikipedia got right today.
Speaker 2: All right, I've only taken a little excerpt, Okay, but
Speaker 2: as part of your relentless quest for justice, your research
Speaker 2: interest extends to the efficacy of expert witness evidence and
Speaker 2: the impact of external influences that may result in bias
Speaker 2: or prejudice in decision making. Is that right and if so,
Speaker 2: can you tell us more about this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say that is right, And that started
Speaker 3: way back with my PhD actually though I was studying
Speaker 3: at the University of Sheffield and the UK. My PhD
Speaker 3: focused on forensic facial recognition. That's where the forensic aspect
Speaker 3: comes in in terms of measuring the human face comparing
Speaker 3: them to determine if we can see what an average
Speaker 3: face is. And this was a project that looked to
Speaker 3: improve methods of identification in a mass screening scenario, so
Speaker 3: at train stations or whatever by measuring faces. But I
Speaker 3: also looked at when evidence is presented in court, especially
Speaker 3: highly technical or scientific evidence, when that can be misrepresented
Speaker 3: or when an expert can basically overstep their bounds or
Speaker 3: in other words, lead the jury erroneously potentially partly to
Speaker 3: a conclusion. So the impacts of expert evidence and when
Speaker 3: ultimately that can go wrong.
Speaker 2: Haven't you got an example of this that you can
Speaker 2: cite to give us an idea of what exactly you're
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 3: Oh well, the example that I looked at heavily in
Speaker 3: my PhD was Professor Soro Meadows, who was an eminent
Speaker 3: pediatrician in the UK, and he gave evidence in a
Speaker 3: number of child death cases where the mothers were accused
Speaker 3: of murdering their child, and he came up with this
Speaker 3: ethos that became known as Meadows Law that one child
Speaker 3: death was sad within a family, two were suspicious, and
Speaker 3: three was murder unless proven otherwise. And he put some
Speaker 3: stats around this which had no basis in reality at all,
Speaker 3: but is very significantly influential in a number of high
Speaker 3: profile child death cases where the women were found guilty
Speaker 3: and subsequently those cases were overturned. When I got to Australia,
Speaker 3: I was disturbed, to say the least, to find that
Speaker 3: Meadow's Law, as it became known, was still influential in
Speaker 3: cath Folbigg's conviction, not only the original conviction but even
Speaker 3: the most recent inquiry. And obviously we all know her
Speaker 3: convictions for three murders and one man's laughter have been overturned.
Speaker 3: She's been acquitted, she's now an innocent woman in the
Speaker 3: eyes of law, correctly so, but he was still being
Speaker 3: quoted in the most recent inquiry. So his evidence was
Speaker 3: incredibly misleading and did untold damage to women across the globe.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure that there are still permeations of that
Speaker 3: in place today. And the way we view women who
Speaker 3: accused of harming their children.
Speaker 1: It's so incredibly general, isn't it, Santhia. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: amazing that you can just for anyone in any scenario,
Speaker 1: lay a template across such a serious incident, in any
Speaker 1: circumstance and think that that's going to fit, you know,
Speaker 1: one size fits all. It does my hitting.
Speaker 3: Actually yeah, And actually, at the time when Cerromeadow's actually
Speaker 3: was giving this evidence, it was clear from research available,
Speaker 3: but losing child to sudden infant death, which is just
Speaker 3: an umbrella category meaning we don't know why a child
Speaker 3: has died, there was evidence to suggest that if you
Speaker 3: lose one, you're actually predisposed to lose more than one.
Speaker 3: So that could be environmental, it could be genetic. It's
Speaker 3: genetic in Cathpolbig's case, and so this evidence was never reliable,
Speaker 3: but it made it to court and he was the
Speaker 3: way he presented. He was so well respected and he
Speaker 3: presented in a very authoritative way and it had a
Speaker 3: huge impact on the jury both in the UK and
Speaker 3: in Australia.
Speaker 2: ZAMPI, there's a few parallels here in relation to our
Speaker 2: case about Ami Wensley in the suicide, because there are
Speaker 2: so many and I know in Britain, I know that's
Speaker 2: where you originally from. The whole hidden homicide issue has
Speaker 2: come to light a lot more than it has in Australia.
Speaker 2: Have you delved into or come across or has it
Speaker 2: been an area of research for you in relation to
Speaker 2: these hidden homicides and women's deaths, often in domestic violence
Speaker 2: situations written not for suicide or accident rather than looked
Speaker 2: at suspiciously. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I actually run at the University of Newcastle the
Speaker 3: Justice Clinic, and I established that in twenty nineteen. It
Speaker 3: was initially called an Innocence Initiative, but we changed the
Speaker 3: name because we do look at cases of miscarriages of
Speaker 3: justice from full conviction. But then when we established it,
Speaker 3: people started coming to us with all sorts of different cases,
Speaker 3: cold cases, long term cold cases for example, but also
Speaker 3: what we've now classed as misclassification of death cases or
Speaker 3: those hidden homicides, and we've worked through with a number
Speaker 3: of families in the Justice Clinic and we still have
Speaker 3: a number of ongoing cases of exactly that hidden homicide.
Speaker 3: So it's something we've been looking at at the University
Speaker 3: of Newcastle since I would think around twenty twenty, and
Speaker 3: sadly it's a lot more prevalent than I ever imagined
Speaker 3: until those families started contacting us and saying, can you
Speaker 3: please help my loved one's death was ruled a suicide
Speaker 3: or misadventure. And sometimes you look at these cases and
Speaker 3: I can't detail them because they're obviously classified. We're working
Speaker 3: through them legally, but yeah, you know, you look at
Speaker 3: it and go, how on earth was that classified as
Speaker 3: a suicide? When you look at the facts of the case.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I guess then that brings us to
Speaker 2: Amy's case and what your impressions general impressions are of
Speaker 2: this case since you've had a look at it.
Speaker 3: So this falls into that very much that category, doesn't it?
Speaker 3: Of suspicious deaths? I guess one of the biggest questions
Speaker 3: for me looking at this as a forensic scientist and
Speaker 3: behavioral expert, is how on earth the detectives arrived at
Speaker 3: that scene and classified this so quickly as not suspicious
Speaker 3: as a suicide. Obviously, the uniform officers believed that this
Speaker 3: was suspicious, but the detective seemed so keen to dismiss
Speaker 3: this very very quickly. And that's a pattern that I've
Speaker 3: seen in hidden homicides. It's that initial response, that lack
Speaker 3: of interest in capturing the scene forensically, lack of interest
Speaker 3: in interviewing those key witnesses, and so sadly, it was
Speaker 3: all too familiar when I read those initial stages of
Speaker 3: the investigation and what had gone so obviously horribly wrong.
Speaker 1: That's just the start of at Zanthea, isn't it. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the sort of the organic beginning of the whole
Speaker 1: Amy Wensley case, where people only have to read a
Speaker 1: summary of what happened from the start and they get
Speaker 1: six or seven lines down, and I think that's weird,
Speaker 1: you know, that's I mean, just that you don't consider
Speaker 1: those circumstances suspicious is weird in itself. But then where
Speaker 1: does it go from that? There? Do you think? I mean?
Speaker 1: From because you, in your position and all the positions
Speaker 1: you've held, you're a lover of detail, right, because that's
Speaker 1: the key to a lot of these things. The devil's
Speaker 1: in the detail. So for you, well, what detail in
Speaker 1: this case sort of troubles you most or you think
Speaker 1: needs the biggest question mark beside it?
Speaker 3: Well, looking at the biomechanical evidence. Obviously, I'm a forensic scientist, anthropologist,
Speaker 3: so that was where my interest was really tweaked in terms,
Speaker 3: I would love to see those biomechanical reports because for me,
Speaker 3: I was listening to this in the car and hearing
Speaker 3: about these biomechanical experts, and for me, I was trying
Speaker 3: to imagine a small woman literally physically being able to
Speaker 3: do what the detectives said that she did.
Speaker 4: Apart from the fact that.
Speaker 3: My experience has been that when people commit a crime
Speaker 3: or in fact suicide, it's usually path of least resistance, Okay,
Speaker 3: so they're not going to set up a scenario that
Speaker 3: makes it incredibly difficult for them to achieve their aim.
Speaker 3: So suicides, when they're in the situation as described in
Speaker 3: Amy's case, it would have been so difficult and for
Speaker 3: her to get physically into that position if it was
Speaker 3: even possible, And that's what I would love to have
Speaker 3: known I would have liked to see, you know, the
Speaker 3: size of the weapon, the length of her arm, the
Speaker 3: body position, all of that information that the biomechanic experts had,
Speaker 3: and that would have been That was my big question.
Speaker 3: It's like, this doesn't feel like this was ever possible,
Speaker 3: And how could you look at that scene as a
Speaker 3: detective and not realize that it just made no sense?
Speaker 1: And it's fascinating that you should phrase it like that,
Speaker 1: because indeed, as it turned out, the police used that
Speaker 1: to then argue against the biomechanical experts. Yes, in the
Speaker 1: sense that they said, well, well, you know now that
Speaker 1: obviously Amy's not here and there's no body to experiment with,
Speaker 1: and we couldn't do it anyway at the scene. Even
Speaker 1: if that was possible. There are inherent limitations. But I
Speaker 1: couldn't agree more. I mean, I thought that just from
Speaker 1: a physical point of view, pushing aside all the science,
Speaker 1: can we call it science? I mean the body of
Speaker 1: evidence that tells us that when women's suicide, they rarely
Speaker 1: use a gun, you know, because of the I don't
Speaker 1: know human nature aspect. I suppose they don't want to
Speaker 1: disfigure themselves, if I can put it that way. I mean,
Speaker 1: as I say, it's not completely unusual, not out of
Speaker 1: the question, but it is, but it is still very
Speaker 1: much a rarity. So combining all that, it's don't you
Speaker 1: think you know where I'm getting at? I do.
Speaker 3: It is unusual for women to choose that method of suicide.
Speaker 3: I would agree with that, but that is subjective at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, because it's not impossibility as
Speaker 3: you as you state, It's possible that somebody could have
Speaker 3: made that choice to use a gun, and occasionally women do,
Speaker 3: although they have less access to firearms, less comfort with
Speaker 3: firearms generally speaking than men. However, I haven't seen those
Speaker 3: biomechanical experts reports.
Speaker 4: What I would like to have.
Speaker 3: Seen is somebody of a similar stature, with similar arm length, etc.
Speaker 3: To Amy to be sat in that specific scenario with
Speaker 3: a weapon of the same dimensions to see whether it
Speaker 3: is literally possible to do that.
Speaker 1: We did that, and we did exactly that, didn't we all? Yes,
Speaker 1: for Spotlight, we had Scott rodercount I didn't.
Speaker 3: See Yeah, yeah, I didn't see that episode.
Speaker 1: People can still see that. Any of our our listeners
Speaker 1: can go to YouTube and dial up that Spotlight episode.
Speaker 1: So what we did we reconstructed that room, send them
Speaker 1: made it perfect. With apology to Dennis committee, everything was
Speaker 1: to scale, including the lady that we used as a
Speaker 1: stand in as an actor. And Scott Rhoda came to
Speaker 1: exactly the same decision, didn't he l In fact, his
Speaker 1: decision was if I could say hardened compared to the
Speaker 1: other biomechanical experts at the inquest, he was left in
Speaker 1: no doubt whatsoever that that was as you say, zanthe
Speaker 1: that was an impossibility.
Speaker 3: And then when you add the behavior or layering over
Speaker 3: the top of that, If it's a physical impossibility for
Speaker 3: somebody of that size and strength to maneuver themselves into
Speaker 3: that position to actually suicide in that fashion, then on
Speaker 3: top of that you have the fact why would you
Speaker 3: why would you wed yourself behind a door, Why would
Speaker 3: you do it with your left hand? Why would you
Speaker 3: actively put your right hand out of action by putting
Speaker 3: it underneath your thigh when we all know that a
Speaker 3: shotgun is heavy, So it makes no physical or behavioral
Speaker 3: sense that somebody would suicide in that fashion when it's
Speaker 3: much There are much easier ways to do.
Speaker 2: It, yeah, like lying on the bed.
Speaker 3: Yep, any number of ways, and certainly with both hands.
Speaker 1: Why wasn't there also a discrepancy raised about those visuals? Zanti,
Speaker 1: Can you give us a bit of insight into that,
Speaker 1: because because only minutes before how many minutes was it, roughly, ol,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've got the exact time at
Speaker 1: your fingertips, but it was between the time that Amy
Speaker 1: took that selfie of her standing in front of the
Speaker 1: mirror with the gun. Because this has been used again,
Speaker 1: this has been used against her in fact, for the
Speaker 1: people who want to promote the idea of suicide. They've
Speaker 1: used that selfie as a way of saying, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: this was her sort of preparing for it, right, That
Speaker 1: was the line used at the inquest. But that was
Speaker 1: about about what forty minutes all was life It's roughly
Speaker 1: roughly forty minutes.
Speaker 2: But this is very very vague, but around about about
Speaker 2: a quarter to five that selfie might have been for oh,
Speaker 2: I think it was forty eight passed or something like that.
Speaker 2: But it was about the time I remember, because it
Speaker 2: was about the time that Josh Briden said he left, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right. And then she had phone call with her mum,
Speaker 2: which was about five o'clock five ish, and it was
Speaker 2: about five twelve when the two boys were making the
Speaker 2: phone call down at Serpentine Rae House, so very tight
Speaker 2: time frame.
Speaker 1: Within half an hour, certainly within the hour, certainly within
Speaker 1: the hour, but maybe half an hour. So my point
Speaker 1: is a very short space of time between her taking
Speaker 1: the selfie, so standing out in the middle of the room,
Speaker 1: loud and proud, taking the selfie, So within thirty forty minutes,
Speaker 1: what her whole mentality changes? I mean, how would you
Speaker 1: possibly start to explain that, Zante?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's very difficult, isn't it, because obviously we
Speaker 3: can't get into the mind of Amy when she took
Speaker 3: that photograph, and that would be kind of a dangerous
Speaker 3: almost thing to do.
Speaker 4: But I agree that there is a juxtaposition between that.
Speaker 3: Image, that very bold image in the you know, that
Speaker 3: she obviously wanted to capture, and from the scene descriptions
Speaker 3: hiding in the corner. So those two to me, well,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to extrapolate from that that that was
Speaker 3: an image that represented suicide.
Speaker 4: That to me would be problematic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it is strange that they did that,
Speaker 2: because the stuff that you would think can't be argued
Speaker 2: about is the science right, I mean I gather that's
Speaker 2: from your point of view, what you'd be looking at
Speaker 2: the most, what you'd give that the most weight, is that, right,
Speaker 2: ZAMPI correct?
Speaker 3: I mean I'm a forensic scientist, so you know, I'm
Speaker 3: very fact driven, very detailed driven, and so that is
Speaker 3: what I rely on, and the circumstantial evidence and the
Speaker 3: witness statements that all builds a picture, right, But it's
Speaker 3: not solid. It's not something that's testable, repeatable, And those
Speaker 3: are the things that give me comfort when a conclusion
Speaker 3: is reached, things that can be tested by other people
Speaker 3: and checked.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, as Lam pointed out one of the things
Speaker 2: that seemed to be the I guess objective of the
Speaker 2: coroner for this case was not being able to rule
Speaker 2: it out. So to her, she couldn't rule out suicide
Speaker 2: because there was limitations on the biomechanic testing. Is it
Speaker 2: a case of what the probability is? How do you
Speaker 2: get that full picture? Yeah, I mean three biomechanic experts now,
Speaker 2: but then there's all these other issues, I suppose, So
Speaker 2: how do you approach it in those sorts of instances
Speaker 2: when the forensic scene has been cleaned up.
Speaker 3: Well, not only is the forensic scene being cleaned up,
Speaker 3: but the images, well, the necessary information wasn't even captured
Speaker 3: in the first place, was it. So you know, a
Speaker 3: blood spatter expert should have come in to interpret the evidence,
Speaker 3: to look at really what angle the shot was taken at.
Speaker 3: Was the victim standing or sitting or crouching or whatever
Speaker 3: was you know, was it possible to achieve that with
Speaker 3: her height and the way she.
Speaker 4: Would have held the gun. Of these things needed.
Speaker 3: To be captured in those those minutes, those hours after
Speaker 3: this event happened. And so it's really difficult to put
Speaker 3: to really quantify how likely something is to have happened.
Speaker 3: But if you can demonstrate that it's physically impossible via
Speaker 3: the science, I think that goes a really long way
Speaker 3: to excluding that as a possibility. And I think once
Speaker 3: that has been excluded, ultimately the police will surely be
Speaker 3: you know, encouraged, is a kind of way of putting it,
Speaker 3: to look at the alternatives. And if suicide is ruled
Speaker 3: out by the science, surely they have to look very
Speaker 3: closely at the alternatives at that point.
Speaker 1: Isn't it fair to say, Anthea that sometimes science can't
Speaker 1: completely rule something in or out. There still has to
Speaker 1: be at the conclusion level. There still has to be
Speaker 1: a modicum of what shall we say the ingredient is
Speaker 1: common sense? Well, yes, you know, because some things are possible, right,
Speaker 1: I mean things are possible. I find a body in
Speaker 1: a lane way with a knife in the back or
Speaker 1: in the stomach, I can say, well, man, there's no
Speaker 1: one else here. It may not be murdered. The person
Speaker 1: may have been playing with the knife and it's been
Speaker 1: a wet night, and that's got to you know, this
Speaker 1: water on the pavement. They might have slipped and the
Speaker 1: knife's gone into their stomach. You know, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: is it possible. Yeah, it's possible, But is it likely exactly?
Speaker 3: And I've seen through my years of being a forensic scientist,
Speaker 3: you know, I finished my PhD in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: I don't know how many cases have looked at since then,
Speaker 3: A number of which have been suicide cases, which, on
Speaker 3: the first looking at it, you go, no, that cannot
Speaker 3: be suicide. But when you delve into it in detail,
Speaker 3: you go, Okay, fact truly is stranger than fiction, and
Speaker 3: there will always be that. You know, what's the percentage
Speaker 3: chance of it being being a not suspicious death, well,
Speaker 3: there is still a chance, and ultimately, any recreation of
Speaker 3: that scene using a stand in as Amy with everything
Speaker 3: you know exact is possible in terms of the size
Speaker 3: of the room and the weight of the gun and
Speaker 3: all of that, it cannot actually recreate what was happening.
Speaker 1: In that moment.
Speaker 3: You do not have Amy anymore. So the stature may
Speaker 3: be slightly off. And also people can do all sorts
Speaker 3: of extreme things under extreme circumstances that you cannot predict
Speaker 3: for in a controlled environment. So there's always that doubt.
Speaker 3: But ultimately, if the science is saying it is highly
Speaker 3: unlikely that that situation is the correct one, it's much
Speaker 3: more likely that it's something else, then that is something
Speaker 3: that needs to be interrogated very closely.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what the two original biomechanical experts said.
Speaker 1: Ol that's exactly the language that they used at the inquest,
Speaker 1: that it was highly unlikely and that it was more
Speaker 1: likely that someone else had pulled the trigger. And I
Speaker 1: got to tell you, I mean, one hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: three centimeters I've held exactly the same gun in our reconstruction.
Speaker 1: There is no way in the wide world. There's no
Speaker 1: way I could have held that up and pull the trigger.
Speaker 4: And again I would come back to why would you?
Speaker 3: Why would you do it in that fashion with your
Speaker 3: left arm twisted around your body to shoot yourself in
Speaker 3: the right temper It makes no.
Speaker 1: Sense, absolutely plus plus. On top of that, the coroner
Speaker 1: has the evidence that on her left hand she has
Speaker 1: a muzzle burn, so she can't pull the trigger with
Speaker 1: her left hand because it's got a muzzle burn on it.
Speaker 3: But surely the coroner was also encouraging the police to
Speaker 3: go back and reinvestigate at that stage of it's an
Speaker 3: open finding. Clearly the answers couldn't be achieved the coroner's
Speaker 3: satisfaction during that inquest. Therefore they are actually saying to
Speaker 3: the police, go back and reinvestigate, have open minds, collect
Speaker 3: all of the available evidence, talk to all of your witnesses,
Speaker 3: do due diligence to get to the correct answer.
Speaker 1: Well, you're being very kind, and you're much more generous
Speaker 1: of spirit than I am.
Speaker 4: Not always.
Speaker 2: It's just like the Lady Banishes case. The currently does
Speaker 2: recommend the police do that, but they don't have to
Speaker 2: now and often don't. So the investigation is still open,
Speaker 2: yet we're not actually doing anything. How often do you
Speaker 2: come across that where there's been an error at the
Speaker 2: beginning and there seems to be a reluctance to change
Speaker 2: their mind. Yeah.
Speaker 3: In all of the hidden homicide cases or miscastification of
Speaker 3: death cases that I've come across that have come in
Speaker 3: to work into the Justice Clinic at the University of Newcastle,
Speaker 3: there has inevitably, I'm thinking all of them, maybe bar one,
Speaker 3: there has been a reluctance by the investigating force to
Speaker 3: really reopen that case. And that's generally why the family
Speaker 3: has come to us. Similar with here, it is out
Speaker 3: of desperation. You know, they're not feeling they're getting the
Speaker 3: answers from the investigators. Often families will report to us
Speaker 3: that they're treated like they're the problem that they just
Speaker 3: you know, the police want them to go away, they
Speaker 3: want them to stop asking questions. And I'm talking some
Speaker 3: of the cases we've looked at go back over fifty years,
Speaker 3: you know, where cases are either cold or hidden homicides,
Speaker 3: we believe potentially and so that has been a core problem. However,
Speaker 3: I have worked on a couple of cases where the
Speaker 3: police have actually approached us and asked us to review
Speaker 3: those cases. So it can depend on the particular agency
Speaker 3: and the particular officers within that agency, but sometimes there's
Speaker 3: definitely a feeling they would rather shut it down than
Speaker 3: reinvestigate because it's this going to open up more problems
Speaker 3: potentially than solve them, because their focus maybe isn't where
Speaker 3: it should be, which is on the victim and their family.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's good, isn't it. I'm pleased to hear that
Speaker 1: that you get approached sometimes in the odd case by
Speaker 1: the police to go back and get a fresh set
Speaker 1: of eyes.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really good.
Speaker 3: It's happened more than one Yeah, in more than one
Speaker 3: state in this country. We've had multiple states come to
Speaker 3: us and say, you know, we don't necessarily have all
Speaker 3: of the resources we need to review all of our
Speaker 3: cold cases or long term missing persons cases. And at
Speaker 3: the University of Newcastle we work with criminology, law and
Speaker 3: psych students predominantly in multidisciplinary groups in their final years,
Speaker 3: and they are so clever and they're so keen, and
Speaker 3: they go down all the rabbit holes and they pick
Speaker 3: apart the detail and they can put fresh eyes over
Speaker 3: it that maybe sometime the police agencies don't have the
Speaker 3: resources to do.
Speaker 1: That's the thing, isn't it Anthea. It's not just you know,
Speaker 1: the quality of the review is quite often just literally
Speaker 1: in that fresh look, the fresh approach. That's the same
Speaker 1: body of evidence or the same collation of evidentiary material,
Speaker 1: but just those fresh eyes, you just look at it
Speaker 1: slightly differently. Absolutely, it can be worth itswighting goal.
Speaker 3: And that's happened a number of times where a student
Speaker 3: will come to me and just raise something they've seen
Speaker 3: in one of the case files that I may have
Speaker 3: seen a hundred times, and they'll say, did you notice this?
Speaker 3: And if have you thought about that? And it will
Speaker 3: be less a little light bulb, something that I wouldn't
Speaker 3: have thought of, because you know, they are bright, they're young,
Speaker 3: but they're so enthusiastic and committed to actually progressing these
Speaker 3: cases that they are absolutely detail oriented. And the mixture
Speaker 3: of those skills between the law, the psyche and the
Speaker 3: crime students is a really powerful tool to unpick some
Speaker 3: of these cases and really take a holistic view. And
Speaker 3: that's ultimately what they need.
Speaker 2: So where do you go from their zem the Once
Speaker 2: you do that, do you do operate port for the police.
Speaker 2: How does that work.
Speaker 3: Well, that really depends. Yes, Sometimes we'll do a report
Speaker 3: for the police. They may be doing a mirrored report internally,
Speaker 3: so like an internal review, and then see what our
Speaker 3: review comes up with to see whether there's anything that
Speaker 3: you know, we've come up with that they haven't. In
Speaker 3: other cases where they may be we may put forward
Speaker 3: a statement for example, we may recommend you know, another
Speaker 3: coronal inquest. We may go for freedom of information because
Speaker 3: we also have an active law school. I work within
Speaker 3: the School of Law and Justice, and we have a
Speaker 3: legal clinic, so we can get freedom information, to get
Speaker 3: different materials that may be blocked to us for other reasons.
Speaker 3: And so it really depends on that particular case what
Speaker 3: is going to benefit our client, and that client could
Speaker 3: be somebody who's incarcerated, it could be a family member,
Speaker 3: or ultimately it could be the police. If we're working
Speaker 3: closely with one of those agencies.
Speaker 2: Hopefully WA police might look at that as well. I mean,
Speaker 2: any any help that they give them that.
Speaker 3: We would love to work with them. Yeah, we've never
Speaker 3: been approached by WA. It's always been East Coast, but
Speaker 3: we're very happy because ultimately our aim at.
Speaker 4: The Justice Clinic is to progress these cases.
Speaker 3: You know, we and the police forces we work with
Speaker 3: and the officers we work with, we all want the
Speaker 3: same thing. We want the right people to go to prison,
Speaker 3: and we want people who are innocent not to go
Speaker 3: to prison. If it's a suicide, the family need to
Speaker 3: know that. But ultimately, if it's something else that needs
Speaker 3: to be addressed, because in a case like Amy's, if
Speaker 3: it were not to be a suicide and somebody else
Speaker 3: is responsible, they're still out there. And so really I
Speaker 3: think ultimately we are all on the same team, so
Speaker 3: we will work with anybody who's working towards that justice
Speaker 3: for these families.
Speaker 1: It's a great point to make because it really matters
Speaker 1: not who solves the case, who ends up providing the
Speaker 1: silver bullet as it were.
Speaker 3: And I work very closely with media too, same thing
Speaker 3: because you also want the same thing. So we are
Speaker 3: actually all the media, the police are Justice Clinic, we
Speaker 3: are all the families. We are all on the same side.
Speaker 1: It always makes me laugh out that, you know, people
Speaker 1: go on about ego in this It's not always directed
Speaker 1: at the police force, but you know, people worry about
Speaker 1: who gets the cutos. I mean that Cutos has forgotten
Speaker 1: very quickly. You know, no one really cares. No one
Speaker 1: really cares who catches the person responsible. They remember the
Speaker 1: person responsible, that that name continues, and that's in a
Speaker 1: way a good thing. You know. If we think about
Speaker 1: the perpetrator being put behind bars, but the caravan moves.
Speaker 2: On, that's so true.
Speaker 1: There's so many investigations outstanding, there are so many people
Speaker 1: who need to be brought to justice. That doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: doesn't not at all.
Speaker 2: And like one of the things is is it's never
Speaker 2: a sole person anyway, it's always a team ethod. Things
Speaker 2: like this are way too involved for it to come
Speaker 2: down to one single person and who takes credit for
Speaker 2: what it doesn't matter. Everybody, the whole team is responsible. Look,
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask his x Anthy. We had Michael Barnes,
Speaker 2: the new South Wales Crime Commissioner, on the other day
Speaker 2: and he had some very interesting insight. He said, basically
Speaker 2: that there needs to be a review process put in
Speaker 2: place for decisions made by the dpp I. It's up
Speaker 2: to them to decide whether a case goes to trial
Speaker 2: or not, but they're not accountable for that decision and
Speaker 2: there's no avenue for a family to have that decision
Speaker 2: reviewed if they decide there's not enough evidence to charge anywhere,
Speaker 2: Like there's just like a two sentence letter saying no,
Speaker 2: we haven't got enough evidence. What do you think about that?
Speaker 4: Oh, yes, this is a bang.
Speaker 3: A drummer was banging a while ago in relays when
Speaker 3: Chris Dawson was finally charged after another major media podcast,
Speaker 3: The Teacher's Pets. So obviously history of that case was
Speaker 3: Chris Dawson was suspected of murdering Lentt Dawson below forty
Speaker 3: years ago now, and two briefs of evidence have been
Speaker 3: presented by the police to the DPP, and the DPP
Speaker 3: had said Nope, not enough to charge. It was only
Speaker 3: the third brief of evidence that the DPP finally agreed
Speaker 3: to charge Chris Dawson. And we all know that he
Speaker 3: was subsequently found guilty. But the frustration that I always
Speaker 3: found with that case, and it's replicated across all DPP
Speaker 3: decisions whether they decide to go ahead or not, is
Speaker 3: there's no accountability.
Speaker 4: There's no transparency.
Speaker 3: Nobody can hold them to account, and they have refused
Speaker 3: to ask answer questions as to how they've reached a decision,
Speaker 3: and I think that's highly problem because it's such a
Speaker 3: powerful institution and part of our criminal justice system, yet
Speaker 3: they're accountable to no one.
Speaker 1: Do you did right? There's no accountability, there's no line
Speaker 1: of questioning from the media because they won't take media.
Speaker 4: Questions, and there's no redress.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, we don't discuss those cases.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that to me is problematic. There needs to
Speaker 3: be transparency because we all need to know that it's fair,
Speaker 3: it's equitable, that the same rules are being applied to everybody.
Speaker 3: And when there's this opacity across such a huge part
Speaker 3: of the process, that to me leads to distrust and
Speaker 3: to me big questions as to who's making those decisions why,
Speaker 3: Because in Chris Dawson's case, I believe it was more
Speaker 3: of a political decision and without the teacher's pair, he
Speaker 3: may never have been charged. But the police were pushing
Speaker 3: for that charge, but the DPP were blocking it, and
Speaker 3: ultimately he was found guilty And that may not have
Speaker 3: happened without the media's pressure because the DPP just simply
Speaker 3: kept saying no.
Speaker 1: But do you have a review process? Now?
Speaker 3: In New South Wales, not as far as I'm aware,
Speaker 3: as far as I'm aware, the DPP still makes unilateral
Speaker 3: decisions that are there is no opportunity to question those decisions.
Speaker 4: You just have to accept them. And to me, that
Speaker 4: is not a fair and equitable justice system.
Speaker 1: Well, they end up being gods, don't they in their
Speaker 1: own right?
Speaker 3: There are gods. Absolutely, they're gods. And who knows on
Speaker 3: what basis those decisions are made.
Speaker 1: Is there any state in Australia that has a review system?
Speaker 2: No? No, So one case here in Queensland is very
Speaker 2: much in the public arena, and that is Brianna Robinson.
Speaker 2: One that Anna mentioned the other week, and that was
Speaker 2: the girl who fell out of her high rise at
Speaker 2: a flat or that she shared with her partner. And
Speaker 2: there's been lots of media and you know he has
Speaker 2: been charged, but the DPP at last minute decided not
Speaker 2: to proceed, saying there wasn't enough evidence and the family
Speaker 2: were just waiting for the trial date though you know,
Speaker 2: it was all happening and then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: they're not going to proceed now with this case. We
Speaker 2: finally got to a point where wa Police have advised
Speaker 2: that as part of their new Task Force Investigation they're
Speaker 2: going to update the brief that they have on Amy
Speaker 2: Wensley and refer it to the DPP. But as we'll
Speaker 2: we just discussing here, the family is completely at the
Speaker 2: mercy of Robert Owen. But when Anna Davey has reached
Speaker 2: out to him in writing, he has not been enthusiastic
Speaker 2: in his reply.
Speaker 3: Well, as you say, with Chris Dawson, that was a
Speaker 3: purely circumstantial case. Nobody cases are incredibly difficult to prosecute
Speaker 3: for obvious reasons. We didn't have a primary crime scene,
Speaker 3: we didn't have the primary evidence, which is in a murder,
Speaker 3: the body itself, and so all of that was lacking.
Speaker 3: In Chris Dawson's case. However, the circumstantial evidence was so
Speaker 3: strong that obviously that the court was convinced that he
Speaker 3: was in fact guilty of the murder. And I believe
Speaker 3: that was the right outcome. In this case, it's different
Speaker 3: and so surely with enough pressure the police can look
Speaker 3: at that.
Speaker 1: Well, it's the way they consider them, isn't it, Anthea,
Speaker 1: As you just mentioned before, that's the great in the
Speaker 1: old language, sixty four thousand dollars question, you know. And
Speaker 1: the thing is it does I use that purposefully because
Speaker 1: it comes back to money as well, you know, And
Speaker 1: that's the other thing about the lack of transparency, because
Speaker 1: the average tax player, the average citizen, doesn't get to see,
Speaker 1: doesn't get to hear. In fact, some of it is
Speaker 1: non quantifiable depending on who the Director of Public Prosecutions
Speaker 1: is that they have to run a budget. They run
Speaker 1: a budget for their office. Canthea, I'm sure you'd agree
Speaker 1: with this. They're sitting back thinking, Okay, how much what
Speaker 1: evidence have I got? The weight of evidence? How strong
Speaker 1: is the brief? How's a jury going to react to this?
Speaker 4: How long likelihood of a prosecution correct?
Speaker 1: How long this case going to run? Or run this
Speaker 1: in the Supreme Court for eight days? That's going to
Speaker 1: cost me x I've got so many cases to run
Speaker 1: this year X number of cases major cases. Where does
Speaker 1: this fit into the the sort of the tesselated jigsaw.
Speaker 1: Maybe not. But you know, they're not going to go
Speaker 1: through and detail any of that. None of that's transparent,
Speaker 1: any of that logic or sort of thinking around that
Speaker 1: decision making process.
Speaker 3: And I do point this out to the students as
Speaker 3: well at work. So there is obviously there are resources
Speaker 3: and resources of finite. So when cases come to us,
Speaker 3: we have to decide which ones to put our energy
Speaker 3: into as well in our time and our resources and
Speaker 3: everything else. And obviously all of the police forces and
Speaker 3: the DPP and all of the elements the criminal justice system,
Speaker 3: the courts, they're all battling those resources. And so we
Speaker 3: work on a lot of cold cases. But you can
Speaker 3: see why a lot of resources are not always put
Speaker 3: into cold cases or potential hidden homicides because it takes
Speaker 3: a lot of work, takes a lot of leadwork to
Speaker 3: go back and reinterview and reinterviewing, as we know as
Speaker 3: a problem anyway, you know, memories change, etc. The evidence
Speaker 3: can be lost or not captured in the first place.
Speaker 3: It is incredibly resource heavy, and when that you balance
Speaker 3: that against modern homicides that have happened, you know, with
Speaker 3: perpetrators who we know are out there in the public
Speaker 3: potentially currently a danger. The police do have these competing
Speaker 3: resource requirements that they have to balance, and that's fundamentally,
Speaker 3: you know, part of our problem. There aren't enough resources
Speaker 3: to really tackle these cases properly.
Speaker 2: But you have to be open minded too, because one
Speaker 2: of the issues that we had at the inquest in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, so it wasn't very long ago. And
Speaker 2: also I just remember it was only ten years ago
Speaker 2: that Amy died, So it's a cold case, but it's
Speaker 2: relatively young for a cold case. So they've got the
Speaker 2: information that they've sent to the coroner, and the coroner's
Speaker 2: made decision. But the problem at that inquest was the
Speaker 2: suicide was the only option they provide added to the coroner.
Speaker 2: And when you don't have the police on your site,
Speaker 2: we've discovered as late as last year there are still officers,
Speaker 2: key officers, senior officers who won't budge on that no
Speaker 2: matter what. And then the other issue, of course is
Speaker 2: Amy is lower socioeconomic and she was mistaken as fascinations
Speaker 2: but it's actually of Tigh descent. But I don't think
Speaker 2: they really have a distinction between that, so it's not
Speaker 2: a case of every life matters to them. If she
Speaker 2: was a white, middle aged woman, for example, like Lyn
Speaker 2: Dawson or Lynn Sims, Now that makes a difference too,
Speaker 2: doesn't it.
Speaker 3: Well, sadly i'd say yeah, But before I comment on that,
Speaker 3: I would say, this isn't a cold case. The definition
Speaker 3: of cold case being a case for which all investigative
Speaker 3: leeds have been exhausted. I think quite clearly the podcast
Speaker 3: is demonstrated that all investigat leeds have not been exhausted.
Speaker 3: So this is not my version of a cold case.
Speaker 3: This is a case that could be with enough will
Speaker 3: from wa police, a very active investigation. There appeared to
Speaker 3: be many lead that could be followed to progress this case.
Speaker 3: So I wouldn't say it's a cold case. And in
Speaker 3: terms of the way we wait human life, yes, sadly,
Speaker 3: I've seen that a number of times across my career.
Speaker 3: In that I remember working on. It wasn't a suspicious death,
Speaker 3: but a man who died on the banks of the
Speaker 3: river Tweed. He appeared to be homeless from the situation,
Speaker 3: and I covered that for a series called Wanted back
Speaker 3: in twenty thirteen, and we did a facial reconstruction of
Speaker 3: that individual and the police were wholly committed to identifying him,
Speaker 3: and they had gone to great lengths over a number
Speaker 3: of years to do so. And a couple of people
Speaker 3: said to me, why are you bothering he's homeless? And
Speaker 3: that really struck me because to me, every life carries
Speaker 3: equal value. I don't care whether you whatever you do
Speaker 3: for a living. Whatever your socioeconomic or educational status, or
Speaker 3: whether you're the Queen, it makes no difference to me.
Speaker 3: Everybody has the equal right for a case to be
Speaker 3: investigated and to have their aim returned to them if
Speaker 3: they're long term unidentified and so, but that would seem
Speaker 3: to be a pervasive thought was does it matter he's homeless?
Speaker 3: And I was actually really taken back by that. But
Speaker 3: that's something sadly I've come across, not only with members
Speaker 3: of the public when I talk about the cases we
Speaker 3: work on, but also sadly with some not all, some
Speaker 3: police officers. But in that case, they were absolutely committed
Speaker 3: to identifying him and his homeless status made no difference
Speaker 3: to those police officers.
Speaker 2: That's lovely. I'm glad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2: That's the whole point as well, that this is not
Speaker 2: all in companies, and we're not branding or tarring everyone
Speaker 2: with the same brush here. It's just that you know,
Speaker 2: this is our biggest fear now that we've come so far,
Speaker 2: provided so many contacts. Now even you, if you're happy
Speaker 2: for us to pass on your details to WO police, absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 2: as you know ways that we can progress this and
Speaker 2: get a positive conclusion. But there's so much unknown with
Speaker 2: a the quality of the file, the brief that police
Speaker 2: do up or provide to the DPP, and then of
Speaker 2: course how he's going to look at it when it
Speaker 2: hasn't really been given much priority at this stage.
Speaker 3: Every case I've seen though, that has been progressed as
Speaker 3: a cold case or a potential hidden homicide, there's been
Speaker 3: a champion. And without that or a miscarriage of justice, everybody,
Speaker 3: all of those victims or if they're incarcerated, they need
Speaker 3: somebody fighting for them on the outside. And that it
Speaker 3: can be a lawyer, it can be a family member,
Speaker 3: or it can be the media.
Speaker 4: They need that.
Speaker 3: So Amy needed her champions, and fortunately she had them
Speaker 3: in her family. Otherwise this case would have gone under
Speaker 3: the radar.
Speaker 1: Spot on and so spot Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that it's really powerful when somebody has a champion,
Speaker 3: But without that, these cases sadly are forgotten.
Speaker 1: Without that sort of level of advocacy, you've got nothing, nothing,
Speaker 1: no leverage at all. I really just pick up on
Speaker 1: something you say there. I totally agree with you, is Anthea.
Speaker 1: I think you know this is this is really not
Speaker 1: a cold case. In the timeliness of this it's still
Speaker 1: very very current.
Speaker 3: When I listen to the podcast, the main individuals who
Speaker 3: the police would need to speak to are still living.
Speaker 3: They're still accessible. So you know, this case is still,
Speaker 3: in my view, solvable. So the family get an answer
Speaker 3: that they can rely on and trust, and that's.
Speaker 4: Ultimately what they need.
Speaker 3: They will no family will ever tell you they get closure,
Speaker 3: but they can get some form of resolution, and they
Speaker 3: all deserve that because they cannot heal until they have
Speaker 3: those answers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, closure, I think closure is a bit of a
Speaker 1: become a bit of a cliche, hasn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they never speak of closure. A family will never.
Speaker 4: Use that phrase.
Speaker 1: No, And I don't blame I don't blame anybody who's
Speaker 1: had that level of grief. I mean, that's just, you know,
Speaker 1: you just learn to live with it. I suppose the
Speaker 1: other thing is that that And here's a great old
Speaker 1: cliche for you. But I heard an interview recently with
Speaker 1: a police commissioner because they asked him about a particular
Speaker 1: case and he said his words were, no, this is
Speaker 1: an unsolved homicide case. This is an unsolved homicide case,
Speaker 1: which is what this is. And this is one hundred
Speaker 1: percent right for people here in Western Australia.
Speaker 3: And that's from everything I've heard on the podcast, and
Speaker 3: that's that my source of information. I haven't had sight
Speaker 3: of those original documents that would certainly be what I
Speaker 3: would consider to be the most common likelihood scenario here,
Speaker 3: but I would love to look at those original documents
Speaker 3: from an anthropological forensic perspective and offer any insight that
Speaker 3: could be gained from that.
Speaker 1: Well, I've just based those comments on what's on the
Speaker 1: official government website. Yes, and that's what it says, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: L there's one million dollar reward for information relating to
Speaker 1: the apprehension of the potential killer or killers of Amy
Speaker 1: Wensley in this case, the homicide of Amy Wensley, but
Speaker 1: it's now labeled at on the government website. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I've never worked on a case that appears to be
Speaker 3: a homicide or a cold case. You know, it doesn't
Speaker 3: matter how long it is where somebody doesn't know something.
Speaker 3: Now people relationships change, loyalties change. There may be a
Speaker 3: situation where somebody knew something they couldn't speak.
Speaker 4: At the time.
Speaker 3: A million dollar reward is on offer that can incentivize
Speaker 3: some people, which is fine, you know, I would be
Speaker 3: very happy for somebody to come forward and give information
Speaker 3: and get that a million dollar award, you know, if
Speaker 3: that family can get the answers. But somebody knows something,
Speaker 3: and that family deserves to know, and Amy deserves to
Speaker 3: be treated with the respect of coming forward and sharing
Speaker 3: that information. So I would urge anyone to do so.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny you should say that, because I have
Speaker 2: a list of questions for different witnesses that I would
Speaker 2: like to get answered, and they weren't questioned properly at
Speaker 2: any stage that I can see in any of the
Speaker 2: police interviews, in the quest itself, I mean, even simply
Speaker 2: with David Simmons asked more we mentioned this lamb about
Speaker 2: pink phone. Why did he pursue Amy's phone? Why didn't
Speaker 2: your clothes have gun residue on them that you hand
Speaker 2: into police when you'd been shooting guns all afternoon if
Speaker 2: those were the clothes that you were wearing, for example.
Speaker 1: You know, so many questions, yeah, yeah, so many questions.
Speaker 1: Just come back to that one. So just refresh my memory.
Speaker 1: Who patted down Amy's body? Was it Gareth Price or Garreth?
Speaker 2: It was Gareth, but that was when they were looking
Speaker 2: for a phone to call Triple zero. Right. It was
Speaker 2: after they came back to the scene, when the police
Speaker 2: were there that he said that I need to go
Speaker 2: get my phone. You wanted to go back in the
Speaker 2: house and Larry Blamford wouldn't let him, and he said,
Speaker 2: I need to get my phone. He says, what does
Speaker 2: it look like? He says it's pink and Larry didn't
Speaker 2: believe him. And funnily enough, when I looked at that,
Speaker 2: thinking why wasn't that raised more in the inquest, he denied,
Speaker 2: saying that Glar Blamford, Larry Blamford's got it on record
Speaker 2: as what had happened, and he denied it. And it
Speaker 2: was kind of like, oh, well, he denied it, so
Speaker 2: I guess, you know, I won't.
Speaker 1: Pursue that he denied it, But it's stuck in the
Speaker 1: mind of the one of the first constables on the scene.
Speaker 1: He pats down the body, but there's no gun residue
Speaker 1: on his clothes afterwards. All blood, really, all blood. Anybody
Speaker 1: who's been to one of those scenes knows how frankly,
Speaker 1: how messy it is.
Speaker 3: It's very unpleasant. A gunshot injury to the head, very
Speaker 3: very unpleasant. Yeah, Lock our principle every contact leaves a trace.
Speaker 2: It's fantastical, honestly, as you know, every episode of conversations
Speaker 2: we home in on something, something that's inexplicable, right, And
Speaker 2: I just can't believe that none of this sort of
Speaker 2: stuff was ringing your larm bells to authorities or the
Speaker 2: coroner of inquest or any of those people just saying
Speaker 2: hang on. But there are dozens and dozens of these
Speaker 2: and they're all actually quite significant. We have a few
Speaker 2: emails from our listeners I just want to go before
Speaker 2: we finish up. One is from m She says, I'm
Speaker 2: really wondering when Gareth and Simmons changed their clothes. There
Speaker 2: is no mention of it in the policing, and no
Speaker 2: question of it after their clothes did not contain any
Speaker 2: gun as a jew after they said they'd been shooting
Speaker 2: in the afternoon, really annoying they didn't go back and
Speaker 2: question them about that, Zanthia, and these red flags for you.
Speaker 3: Oh, certainly, I mean, the lack of evidence is one
Speaker 3: of the main problems for me in this case. As
Speaker 3: you say, you know, why did they not look for
Speaker 3: gun to residue?
Speaker 4: Why was the question not raised? Why it was missing.
Speaker 4: That's an issue.
Speaker 3: I know that DV wasn't a particularly strong lens through
Speaker 3: which they investigated at the time, but obviously red flags
Speaker 3: were missed. They didn't search a handbag, and you know,
Speaker 3: women don't carry their passports around on them because we
Speaker 3: don't want to lose it, right, And I think if
Speaker 3: we can learn anything from this, it's got to be
Speaker 3: that we have to do better for potential victims of
Speaker 3: domestic and family violence.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely so. The other letter that we got is
Speaker 2: High Podcast Team. Well, sorry, the only one that I
Speaker 2: should say. We get lots of these, but these are
Speaker 2: just two that have picked up High Podcast Team. This
Speaker 2: is a question that I have thought about for a while.
Speaker 2: Perhaps I missed it in an earlier episode. It relates
Speaker 2: to Amy's hand being under her buttock. I saw the
Speaker 2: reconstruction spotlight, but I don't recall if she was shot
Speaker 2: while she was sitting on the floor or was she standing.
Speaker 2: It's been annoying me, so I hope you can clarify
Speaker 2: it for me. Regards and well, I can just give
Speaker 2: you a bit of guidance there she was sitting, you know,
Speaker 2: when I look at that reconstruction on Spotlight, she was
Speaker 2: sitting down, and there was all this information as to
Speaker 2: whether she could have used the butt, you know that
Speaker 2: the testing was done, whether she could put the butt
Speaker 2: on the bed or on the floor or any of
Speaker 2: those sorts of things. But yeah, none of that sort
Speaker 2: of worked.
Speaker 1: So the idea was she was sitting down when the
Speaker 1: gun went off. That's the way it's been framed, hasn't
Speaker 1: it correct.
Speaker 4: And that's from the blood spata pattern.
Speaker 1: Yeah, correct.
Speaker 2: Yes, they had photos. They didn't obviously couldn't go back
Speaker 2: to the scene, but they did have photos, so that's
Speaker 2: from the blood spatter and also just in relation to
Speaker 2: how her body was found. But you know, there was
Speaker 2: always one of the issues that sort of prevented the
Speaker 2: coroner from ruling suicide out was how much her body
Speaker 2: had moved and the fact that the gun had been moved.
Speaker 1: And the fact that there'd been an entry into the
Speaker 1: room of three or four people.
Speaker 4: The scene was contaminated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so that they were all significant things. So anyway,
Speaker 2: that hopefully that answers your question, and sand they just
Speaker 2: to finish up. It's really been really good to speak
Speaker 2: to you today about even just to the fact that
Speaker 2: you don't consider it a cold case, so it really
Speaker 2: hadn't dawned on me that. Yes, you're right, you know,
Speaker 2: it was only so many years ago that the inquest
Speaker 2: was held, there was so much mucking around on it.
Speaker 2: But yes, I guess that any other issues that you
Speaker 2: think need to be flagged in relation to to these
Speaker 2: sorts of cases and an anything that you think specifically
Speaker 2: about Amy's case that you haven't mentioned yet.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's anything specifically about Amy's case, But
Speaker 3: when the interview with the DV expert, I think that
Speaker 3: was really powerful. You know that we know how pervasive
Speaker 3: DV is, we know that it's often not reported. In fact,
Speaker 3: it's reported very seldomly. And I think, if nothing else,
Speaker 3: the fact that the car is running, the children in
Speaker 3: the car, the bags are in the car, she's got
Speaker 3: a passport on her, this woman was running, and the
Speaker 3: fact that that was missed, I think is such a
Speaker 3: shame because you know that could have totally changed the
Speaker 3: flavor of this investigation early on, and we can't afford
Speaker 3: to risk making that mistake.
Speaker 1: Again, I agree with that. Just sitting here just thinking
Speaker 1: about something you said in relation to that'santhe about the
Speaker 1: fact that you know we need to do better looking
Speaker 1: through these things through that DV lens. But I just
Speaker 1: don't understand, you know, even with the passing of time,
Speaker 1: I just can't. I can't wrap my head around anybody
Speaker 1: with a police badge, junior, senior, whatever, not turning up
Speaker 1: to that location and seeing those ingredients in play, the
Speaker 1: car running, the kids in the car, little kids, little girls,
Speaker 1: two little girls, a violent death at the end of
Speaker 1: a gun, and the bloke her partner is there saying suicide, suicide, suicide.
Speaker 1: Anyone in their right mind putting two and two together
Speaker 1: and going could this be domestic violence? Or could this
Speaker 1: be a domestic violence issue? Not turning around and saying
Speaker 1: months later, oh no, No, we didn't really examine that
Speaker 1: too much because we checked our database and there's no
Speaker 1: official complaint from miss Amy Wensley on the database. There
Speaker 1: was never an official complaint made in the year's proceeding.
Speaker 1: I don't get that.
Speaker 3: I think the point is it's always it would always
Speaker 3: have to be investigated supicious until it's been determined that
Speaker 3: it's not. Rather, because it doesn't work the other way around.
Speaker 3: You can't determine later something is suspicious. Once all of
Speaker 3: that information evidence is lost. So I think again, that's
Speaker 3: a lesson here if when in any doubt, treat it suspicious,
Speaker 3: downgrade it later totally.
Speaker 1: But again, it's a domestic environment, it's at their house,
Speaker 1: it's in their bedroom. What more do you need to
Speaker 1: look at it through a DV lens. It may not
Speaker 1: end up being that, you know, you may end up
Speaker 1: coming to another conclusion entirely.
Speaker 4: And that's what you do.
Speaker 3: You'd have to investigate all levels, you know, all paths potentially,
Speaker 3: so that would be accident, misadventure, obviously falling under the accident,
Speaker 3: intentional or other person. And you have to look at
Speaker 3: all of those scenarios until the evidence leads you clearly
Speaker 3: in one direction, exactly to the exclusion of the others,
Speaker 3: rather than excluding them before the evidence has spoken.
Speaker 2: Well, Zampi, you'll be pleased to know that Sharon dev Singh,
Speaker 2: who you were referred to before providing the domestic violence aspect,
Speaker 2: also having dealt so much with one nation's women, now
Speaker 2: he was terrific, but yes he was looking on a
Speaker 2: broader scale. Next week we're speaking domestic violence. New South
Speaker 2: Wales Deputy CEO Elise Phillips. Oh good, yes, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you know Elise or or work with domestic
Speaker 2: violence New South Wales. But no, it's good to have
Speaker 2: people like yourself, people like the Crime Commissioner New South Wales,
Speaker 2: Michael Barnes and now Elise Phillips helping us. We are
Speaker 2: reaching out to the WA people as well, but obviously
Speaker 2: it's harder I think when you live there. But thank
Speaker 2: you so much for your time.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. That was really awesome.
Speaker 3: Enjoy chatting to you so and thanks for giving a
Speaker 3: voice to Amy, because I think it's really important that
Speaker 3: somebody is speaking for her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, our pleasure is Anthony. Thank you very much for
Speaker 1: being involved and we'll pass on your very very.
Speaker 3: Kind Yeah, very happy to help the invitation.
Speaker 1: Yeah to WA police, thank you so much. Good to
Speaker 1: talk to you, good to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Take care.
Speaker 4: Thanks bye