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: Good morning, everyone, Welcome to the Truth About Amy podcast Conversations.
Speaker 2: I am Alison Sandy, the executive producer of the podcast,
Speaker 2: and I'm joined by Liam Bartlett, who you all know
Speaker 2: in Western Australia, and also Tim Clark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks very much, Alison, and great to be here. Tim,
Speaker 1: legal affairs editor at The West Australian of course s
Speaker 1: WM and a man who's done so much work on
Speaker 1: this podcast. We're thirteen weeks in now, Tim, what are
Speaker 1: you making of it?
Speaker 3: Well, firstly, Liam, sorry, I'm not either Robbie Williams or
Speaker 3: James Packer, so apologies for that. Your level is up
Speaker 3: here Mine is sort of slightly underneath that, but you know,
Speaker 3: all joking aside. It's that quality of journalism that's brought
Speaker 3: us here today with the podcast and the interest that
Speaker 3: it's been gathering over the weeks, which is what we
Speaker 3: can see from the level of reaction it's getting both
Speaker 3: from the listeners and from those that you've been approaching
Speaker 3: to interview as the podcast has gone on. There's two
Speaker 3: things that's struck me really, and it was the one
Speaker 3: thing that struck me when I first met Anna outside
Speaker 3: the first day of the inquest all those years ago.
Speaker 3: Is her strength and the strength of the Wensley and
Speaker 3: Davely families for refusing to give up really and refusing
Speaker 3: to bow down to what is obviously being pressure put
Speaker 3: on them from various quarters. And then opposite that strength
Speaker 3: is basically the weakness of the authorities that have dealt
Speaker 3: with this case for ten years now, starting obviously with
Speaker 3: the with the detectives that first turned up at the scene,
Speaker 3: but then the rolling sort of denials and obscation.
Speaker 1: And yeah, complete intransigence, isn't that That's a good word.
Speaker 1: That's a good word. You really hit the nail on
Speaker 1: the head there. I think that the contradiction pointing out
Speaker 1: that contradiction, and it is a huge golf, isn't it
Speaker 1: between what Anna Davey Amy's aren't and extended family and
Speaker 1: Nancy herm and especially Nancy what they have done and
Speaker 1: what they continue to go through, but what the way
Speaker 1: they have sort of marshaled their forces, albeit very small,
Speaker 1: you know, the virtually powerless in that sense, But what
Speaker 1: power they have in terms of talking to people like
Speaker 1: us and Allison will back me up on this, and
Speaker 1: going to authorities and doing whatever they can whenever they can,
Speaker 1: compared to people in those positions of power. I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that's really struck me about this.
Speaker 1: I'm and Tim, you know where I'm coming from here,
Speaker 1: because I've spent a long time here in Western Australia.
Speaker 1: Among those authorities, you've spent more, in fact, you've had
Speaker 1: a deeper dive around that judicial system in your work
Speaker 1: with through the courts. Yeah, that's probably WA Police, you know,
Speaker 1: the Attorney General's Office, you know, people who really are
Speaker 1: the decision makers. And I'm still I'm still after all
Speaker 1: these years, I'm amazed at the complete it's almost a
Speaker 1: lack of care, you know, It's almost it's almost that's
Speaker 1: the way it comes across. I might be being a
Speaker 1: bit unfair, but it's it almost comes across as a
Speaker 1: sort of personalized get stuffed. Yeah, that's that's in the
Speaker 1: in the Ossie vernacular. That's the way it seems like,
Speaker 1: what why can't somebody somewhere please just put their hand
Speaker 1: up and say, look, you know what, we're going to
Speaker 1: fix this.
Speaker 3: And there seems to be to me there's a there's
Speaker 3: a trademark West Australian style of this type of case, right,
Speaker 3: and you can go through them, going back, you know,
Speaker 3: to the button and Beamish ones, and it starts with
Speaker 3: a colonel like a core belief that the authority has
Speaker 3: about a certain case and a refusal then to admit
Speaker 3: or even countenance that that colonel at the start might
Speaker 3: have been wrong.
Speaker 1: Spot on. Once the blinkers go on, that's it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And what disappointed me this week, particularly reading the letter
Speaker 3: that our Attorney General, John Quigley had sent to the
Speaker 3: Wensley family and Anadavian particular are attorney General was involved
Speaker 3: in one of those cases on the other side, which
Speaker 3: involved a man, a vulnerable man, convicted of a murder
Speaker 3: that he didn't commit. And it took journalistic skills like
Speaker 3: yours and Allison's have been employed in the last year
Speaker 3: or more to uncover that wrong. And then John Quickley,
Speaker 3: when he was in opposition, joined that and fought so
Speaker 3: hard to get that man released and he was eventually released. Now, John's,
Speaker 3: you know, coming towards the end of his political career,
Speaker 3: a career I think that's had got a lot to
Speaker 3: say for it. Actually, I mean, he's been a very
Speaker 3: reforming attorney general. He's appointed so many women to the bench,
Speaker 3: which is you know, evened up that you know, long
Speaker 3: held imbalance. But on this case, for whatever reason, he's
Speaker 3: sticking to this dogma that I can't send it to
Speaker 3: the DPP and the opposition is off the complete opposite
Speaker 3: view that he can if he wants to, of course
Speaker 3: he can. And that's just one piece of the puzzle,
Speaker 3: you know, of a you know, a whole line of
Speaker 3: refusals of just to listen to an opposing view or
Speaker 3: at least countenance that, well, this is the like, this
Speaker 3: is wrong. This is just clearly wrong on all facts.
Speaker 3: And you know the physical evidence, the gun, Amy's hand,
Speaker 3: you know, the crime scene, what the detectives did, like
Speaker 3: all those little bits along the way or as you say,
Speaker 3: your word, intransitident, just just a refusal to move.
Speaker 1: Well, the case you mentioned, let's stay on quickly for
Speaker 1: a moment, Allison. Let's let's talk about the role of
Speaker 1: the Attorney General, because This fascinates me, the point that
Speaker 1: Tim's just raised about how how paralyzed he seems to be,
Speaker 1: and especially given his background as as really somebody who
Speaker 1: who does stand up, who has stood up in the past.
Speaker 1: I mean, this guy remember years ago, Tim was the
Speaker 1: lawyer for the police union. He was bulldog like in
Speaker 1: his approach and on the case you mentioned the Andrew
Speaker 1: Mallard case. It ended up getting Andrew Mallard, well a clearance.
Speaker 3: I mean the start of that investigation, there was timing.
Speaker 3: I mean, it ended up that there was a palm
Speaker 3: print that actually, you know they all missed and you know,
Speaker 3: and pointed to the actual killer.
Speaker 1: Well, one single palm print, you know, that was the
Speaker 1: as you say, that was the spark that ignited the
Speaker 1: whole thing. There's a lot more. There's so many sparks
Speaker 1: in this case. It's a raging bushfire. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know you have to what do we have to
Speaker 1: do to turn the bloke's eyes towards the wrongfulness of
Speaker 1: some of this stuff? I mean, it just makes me,
Speaker 1: It makes me amazed, And I agree with your assessment
Speaker 1: to a certain point. I think his career has been
Speaker 1: marked by some decent stuff. Although I would argue that
Speaker 1: the strength of that career came to a screeching halt,
Speaker 1: and for the benefit of our recent states listeners and others,
Speaker 1: screeching halt during COVID when Clive Palmer, the Ossie billionaire,
Speaker 1: took out a case against the WA government, and on
Speaker 1: the front page of our newspaper Tim there were text
Speaker 1: messages from John Quigley, the Attorney General, to the Premier,
Speaker 1: Mark McGowan, the then Premier, which were of a of
Speaker 1: a shall we say John quickly describing his sex life
Speaker 1: and other such things quite personally embarrassing. And I think
Speaker 1: since then he's been completely newted in his effectiveness. He's
Speaker 1: been turned into some sort of you know, Egyptian Eunich
Speaker 1: and in this case, he in this case he just
Speaker 1: refuses to do anything. And he can do a lot
Speaker 1: of things. He can do a lot of things. But
Speaker 1: what about the police commissioner. What do you think about
Speaker 1: the commissioner's role in all this and the sort of
Speaker 1: inaction Allison. And the reason I ask you that question
Speaker 1: is because there's no reason for cole Blanche not to
Speaker 1: do something. It's not as if he was commissioner at
Speaker 1: the time. When when when this this appalling level of
Speaker 1: invest mistigation. If I can even use that word, it
Speaker 1: was so bad on the night Amy died took place.
Speaker 1: Cole Blanche wasn't the commission he can he can rightly
Speaker 1: say put up his hand and say, listen, that was terrible.
Speaker 1: Things were done that were wrong, But I wasn't in charge.
Speaker 1: Then I am now, and this is what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: We're going to fix it.
Speaker 2: Do you think maybe it was because he signed that
Speaker 2: letter of regret? Maybe? I mean, look, it's an error,
Speaker 2: it's an unfortunate error, but we can move beyond that, right.
Speaker 2: I mean that's with everything, right, everything's been pretty much
Speaker 2: an error all this way. So it's a case of
Speaker 2: just saying, yep, we're owning it. We're moving on, we're
Speaker 2: moving forward. But I think with cole Blanche, when I
Speaker 2: look at the Foy correspondence we got, it makes me
Speaker 2: think that maybe that kind of attitude goes all the
Speaker 2: way to the top.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, it's a failure of leadership. But that is leadership,
Speaker 1: isn't it Just putting your hand up and saying, listen, guys,
Speaker 1: we got a wrong. You don't have to say I
Speaker 1: got it wrong. It wasn't, as I say again, it
Speaker 1: wasn't cole Blanche in charge at the time. But he's
Speaker 1: the leader now, and isn't that what leadership, Good leadership
Speaker 1: is all about, saying listen, we're just going to right
Speaker 1: these wrongs. It doesn't cost us anything. In fact, we
Speaker 1: win more friends. We win more friends doing it the
Speaker 1: proper way now by acknowledging that things weren't quite right.
Speaker 1: But you know what, we're not going to put up
Speaker 1: with anything else. Now, let's let's absolutely put this on
Speaker 1: the road to redemption.
Speaker 3: Do you think he would have been involved in signing
Speaker 3: off on that on the new team in e Commas
Speaker 3: it's been that's been put in place in w police
Speaker 3: to investigate things that they say have come from crime stoppers.
Speaker 3: I think so yeah, In which case, why wouldn't he
Speaker 3: then publicly say, you know, come up to the public,
Speaker 3: come on this podcast and say, look, I've done that
Speaker 3: because A, I want to make sure that everything's done
Speaker 3: right from now on. B there are valuable tipbits coming
Speaker 3: forward that we think the need investigating properly and see
Speaker 3: by association. You know, obviously, what you've done or what
Speaker 3: the podcast has shown is that we made mistakes in
Speaker 3: the past. I mean, as you say, Liam, leadership is
Speaker 3: not just about bluff and bluster. It's all about also
Speaker 3: about admitting mistakes and saying, you know, putting your hand
Speaker 3: up and say, well, all we can do now is
Speaker 3: try and make sure we do it right from here
Speaker 3: on in. But for whatever reason he's been advised, you know,
Speaker 3: he can't say anything publicly. He can just give us
Speaker 3: the I think you called it in the email to me,
Speaker 3: quite a vanilla or bay statement that they said confirming
Speaker 3: that team had been put in place, and then you
Speaker 3: know nothing more, which is yeah, again disappointing to me
Speaker 3: and a little a little bit a little bit weak.
Speaker 3: So I'll put it back on you too. What do
Speaker 3: you feel like other vital bits of new information that
Speaker 3: you've managed to flash out over the year in a
Speaker 3: bit that you've been that you've been looking back into
Speaker 3: Amy's case.
Speaker 1: For me, the most recent one, let's start with the
Speaker 1: most recent, and that was the evidence. I'll call it evidence.
Speaker 1: It's first person recount from the lady who rang crime
Speaker 1: stoppers as a result of our original story and episode
Speaker 1: one really and talked about Joshua Brydon. Now she's the
Speaker 1: friend of Joshua Brighton's ex partner. Is that correct, Alison,
Speaker 1: let me just get that right. She's the friends now.
Speaker 1: To me, her first hand account as an ear witness
Speaker 1: puts Joshua Brdon at the scene where let me put
Speaker 1: it this way, it contradicts Joshua Brden's account completely as
Speaker 1: we know, it completely contradicts it. I think that's significant.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's fascinating. It's completely fascinating.
Speaker 1: And to me, you know, if I was the detective
Speaker 1: working on the case, that would be my first port
Speaker 1: of call. I'd be dragging him in for a for
Speaker 1: a formal sit down interview to say, look, this is
Speaker 1: completely at odds with every statement you've made or what
Speaker 1: you have told any measure of authority from day one,
Speaker 1: how do you explain it? And putting that story, putting
Speaker 1: that narrative under a bit of pressure, that for me
Speaker 1: is the most is the most amazing thing. That's a
Speaker 1: place to start. But that's also probably the most recent Allison,
Speaker 1: would that be fair? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think Joshua Brydon is the weak link in this
Speaker 2: whole case, well, one of the weak links, I should say,
Speaker 2: there's plenty, but I think that. And the timeline, right,
Speaker 2: this is the one that we pointed out in episode twelve,
Speaker 2: the timeline of where he talks about David Simmons putting
Speaker 2: the kids and packing their clothes and toys in the car. Now,
Speaker 2: that didn't happen until after Amy had the phone call
Speaker 2: with her mother, which was about five o'clock, and Joshua
Speaker 2: Bryden was supposed to be at least twelve minutes or
Speaker 2: thirteen minutes gone by then, yes, and yet he recalled that.
Speaker 1: So it's it just doesn't Can I just say something there?
Speaker 1: Let me just jump in there. Tim does this strike
Speaker 1: he was weird because when I look at that timeline,
Speaker 1: I've been back over it as recently as last night,
Speaker 1: just four or five times. Now, that's a timeline constructed,
Speaker 1: not by us. That timeline's constructed by Major crime. So
Speaker 1: even leave out this other woman's evidence to us, who's
Speaker 1: only recently phoned in to crime stoppers, But I mean,
Speaker 1: just looking at that, well, why didn't somebody in major
Speaker 1: crime look at that in the same way? And so
Speaker 1: you hang on a minute that that doesn't fit, That
Speaker 1: really doesn't fit.
Speaker 3: And that's you know, and that's not the only bit.
Speaker 1: No, no, But but I'm just saying, you know that
Speaker 1: that's a relatively recent when I say recent in the
Speaker 1: overall chronology of major crime, putting that together to somebody
Speaker 1: somewhere in a police uniform to look at that timeline
Speaker 1: and say, guys, that's not really it's not really adding up.
Speaker 3: And it's not just major crime. I mean, he gave
Speaker 3: that same evidence to the coroner, so you know, sort
Speaker 3: of the council assisting in the coroner or the coroner
Speaker 3: herself could have could have gone away and did go
Speaker 3: away for many many months to put together her inquest findings,
Speaker 3: which were, you know, many dozens of pages. And then
Speaker 3: there's you know, the other little things like David Simmons
Speaker 3: supposedly firing a gun at a tree to get rid
Speaker 3: of parrots while all this chaos is his life is
Speaker 3: falling to pieces around him, and when that just makes
Speaker 3: no logical sense to me. No, no, And he said
Speaker 3: that various times he was questioned about it. He stuck
Speaker 3: to that story. Why when your partner is in the
Speaker 3: middle of leaving you, You've got kids in the car,
Speaker 3: you've got people there, you've got lizard tank smashing, you've
Speaker 3: got you know, a physical altercation, and then amid all this,
Speaker 3: you supposedly fire a gun at a tree like that
Speaker 3: just makes no sense. That's all logical sense, I mean,
Speaker 3: you know. And so all right, you can take that
Speaker 3: out of context and say, oh, well it's a little thing,
Speaker 3: but it's not.
Speaker 1: It not only makes no sense, but it also doesn't
Speaker 1: fit for me time wise in terms of just a
Speaker 1: basic action, like to do it in a comfortable way
Speaker 1: and then and then for me to get to the
Speaker 1: end of the timeline where they make the call from
Speaker 1: the Serpentine roadhouse. Now, now, if anybody's been out there
Speaker 1: and had a look at the sort of distance we're
Speaker 1: talking about, Allison, you have and I have, you will
Speaker 1: know that to get to that Serpentine roadhouse from that
Speaker 1: little house up the road, it's only up the road,
Speaker 1: but it's a little bit of a drive. And you
Speaker 1: look at the timeline again put together by Major Crime,
Speaker 1: that's a very tight turnaround. You have to be jumping
Speaker 1: in that car to know that. Okay, in the car,
Speaker 1: let's go. We have to get to that roadhouse make
Speaker 1: that call to Triple zero. That's got to happen very quickly.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you physically, that's got to happen very quickly.
Speaker 1: And that just does not make sense to me. That
Speaker 1: whole thing doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: And that's after Gareth has padded down Amy looking for
Speaker 2: her phone, yep, and the whole argument about well, let's
Speaker 2: go to the main house and David Simmons saying to Gareth, no, no,
Speaker 2: that's not there.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things going on. Yep. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of conversations going on. There's a lot of panic,
Speaker 1: no matter what, no matter what, even if you take
Speaker 1: the suicide angle, there's a lot of panic. There's shock that,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of emotions. There's a lot happening there
Speaker 1: in that incredibly compressed timeline, which again I'll say again
Speaker 1: does not makes sense. And anybody, anybody who looks at that,
Speaker 1: I defy anybody who looks at that who's gone past
Speaker 1: fourth grade education to make it make sense.
Speaker 3: And then you've got one of Amy's thoughts saying consistently
Speaker 3: that she's seen one of these men bringing the bins
Speaker 3: right now. She look this Obviously it's chaotic. There's there's guns,
Speaker 3: there's dogs, there's people. Is like, you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: getting dark. The emotion of all the things even a
Speaker 3: young girl could mistakenly have seen, right, you know, it
Speaker 3: could have been one person coming out with the house
Speaker 3: when it wasn't fine. But to see a person dragging
Speaker 3: a bin all that way, that that strikes me as
Speaker 3: a core memory, you know what I mean, Like a
Speaker 3: memory that you couldn't reconstruct. Of all the things you
Speaker 3: could reconstruct, why would you reconstruct a bin.
Speaker 1: That's a great question.
Speaker 2: I thought the same when I was going through Joshua
Speaker 2: Bryden's first statement. He made a point of saying Amy
Speaker 2: asked us to take out the bins. Like you're going
Speaker 2: through this, you're going through all this stuff about what
Speaker 2: happened to Amy. Amy's dead, and yet you make a
Speaker 2: point in your statement to say we took out the bins.
Speaker 2: It just didn't make sense to me that you would
Speaker 2: put that in.
Speaker 1: Why would you say that? Yeah, why would you say that?
Speaker 1: Why would you say that? I mean, I don't only
Speaker 1: talk about my wife telling me to put out the
Speaker 1: bins of us in trouble.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you never asked. I always remember.
Speaker 1: So on that Tim, and I know the legalities around this.
Speaker 1: The little girl's six years old when she says this,
Speaker 1: so she can't be cross examined, be cross examly. But
Speaker 1: so what so what I mean, why would a little
Speaker 1: child make that sort of recollection up? You don't do it.
Speaker 1: And I was amazed that the coroner actually didn't put
Speaker 1: more weight on that. Now the coroner can turn around
Speaker 1: and say whatever she likes about well that child. You
Speaker 1: know that child's not going to be able to be
Speaker 1: cross examined on it. So what so what isn't that
Speaker 1: sort of isn't that contemporaneous evidence more important in helping
Speaker 1: the coroner form an opinion at the end of the process.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's just look at the facts of the case.
Speaker 1: And that's the same with the police. I mean that
Speaker 1: helps them does and it helps them create the narrative
Speaker 1: and put the story together and think something fishy there, mate.
Speaker 3: And three things about that. One, the coroner's court is
Speaker 3: not is not a criminal court. So Joshuah Briden could
Speaker 3: have and I can't remember if you did, but there's
Speaker 3: certainly the option that you can be you can get
Speaker 3: a ladder of authority, you know, a latter of comfort
Speaker 3: to say anything you say here can't using in a
Speaker 3: criminal court, right, So there's that. So the coroner, any coroner,
Speaker 3: can ask any question without compunction if they want to
Speaker 3: be Okay, the daughter can't be called as a direct witness.
Speaker 3: But whatever mister Briden or mister Price or mister Simmons
Speaker 3: want to say about that, they had their own legal representation,
Speaker 3: so they could be asked by their lawyer to counteract
Speaker 3: anything that either the police lawyer or the councilor assistant
Speaker 3: could have asked them. There that that's two things. And
Speaker 3: see there's nothing to stop the police asking them about it,
Speaker 3: but you know, and going back to it and you know,
Speaker 3: convincing themselves, trying to convince themselves. But as you said,
Speaker 3: there's so many there's so many strands in this case,
Speaker 3: Liam and Allison just up in the air, just floating there,
Speaker 3: just you know, you're trying to grip onto some sort
Speaker 3: of solidity about what happened, and the questions that have
Speaker 3: been asked or not asked over the years have just
Speaker 3: left them all sort of you know, you know, just
Speaker 3: floating there, just trying to be tied together in some
Speaker 3: sort of solid way, and you just can't because either
Speaker 3: people haven't been asked or quite frankly, we think it
Speaker 3: appears that people.
Speaker 2: Have laid just a little bit of background on the
Speaker 2: stuff that Naya put forward. This is Amy six year old.
Speaker 2: So my understanding is that David Simmons only started talking
Speaker 2: about shitting the gun after Naya said that she remembers
Speaker 2: her dad cheating the dump, so then he brought that in.
Speaker 2: But the other thing, the other massive piece of effort
Speaker 2: evidence provided by Naya, which I still find astounding, was
Speaker 2: completely ignored that and David Simmons going back to get
Speaker 2: or trying to get Amy's phone and asking Larry Blampard
Speaker 2: and Larry Blampet saying no, that obviously as well, but
Speaker 2: out also seeing her father, Well, David Simmons isn't her father,
Speaker 2: but at the time she caught him, Daddy go back
Speaker 2: into the room with that shotgun, the black gun with
Speaker 2: the Scott. So she goes into detail as to this gun, right,
Speaker 2: which is the It isn't the twenty two, it's the
Speaker 2: other one that was found in the water. She said
Speaker 2: she saw David Simmons put that gun in the wardrobe,
Speaker 2: which is where it was found. It was where it
Speaker 2: was found, and again he said he didn't go back
Speaker 2: into that room, And initially and then at the inquest
Speaker 2: he said he didn't remember.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it just another another thread. So reflections from
Speaker 3: you two about the whole process. I mean, all right,
Speaker 3: I'll start with you, Allison. What's it like being working
Speaker 3: with the great legend Leam Bartlett.
Speaker 1: Terrible on Monday?
Speaker 3: And you and you two have banged on about honesty
Speaker 3: for three months, so I'm going to call you on it.
Speaker 3: But seriously, what's it been like?
Speaker 2: Well, well, no, Tim, this is not my first rodeo
Speaker 2: with Liam, so you know I was. I was going
Speaker 2: in there with eyes wide open where you did. Obviously
Speaker 2: the lady vanishes and we spent all that time in Europe,
Speaker 2: so and we'd already talked about Liam and I we
Speaker 2: were already talking about his next podcast, which is a
Speaker 2: Cup of Concrete, which is you know, Liam giving you know,
Speaker 2: his views, and anyone who's hung out with Liam you
Speaker 2: never died wondering what Liam's thinking, you know. So it's
Speaker 2: been it's been really good actually, and going to his
Speaker 2: his neck of the words, he's Nahboro, he's hood and
Speaker 2: then heading out a certain times. So that's a completely
Speaker 2: different area from me. It's actually very beautiful.
Speaker 1: In the area. It is I wasn't.
Speaker 2: I wasn't. You know. I suppose when you're going in
Speaker 2: there for such a negative thing, you expect it to
Speaker 2: be horrible, right, but it's actually surprisingly beautiful and going
Speaker 2: to the house and meeting the different people. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: Liam and I did a lot of that. I got
Speaker 2: him lost one day. I took a wrong turn. It
Speaker 2: was all of a sudden. I think that's down that
Speaker 2: road actually where David Simmons crashed the car with Amy.
Speaker 2: I think that was the road.
Speaker 1: I actually it literally led me astray.
Speaker 2: But no, Liam is amazing, And I'm saying that. I'm
Speaker 2: saying that with all honesty because I just you know,
Speaker 2: everyone's got their You know that they've got it. You
Speaker 2: don't have to prerep or anything like that. What Lim's doing,
Speaker 2: it's going to be one hundred percent. So you just
Speaker 2: don't have to worry about limb.
Speaker 3: You just I worry about it.
Speaker 1: I need somebody to worry about me, all right.
Speaker 3: And so you've doped all the mean players?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what goes through.
Speaker 3: Your mind when you're about to walk, say to a
Speaker 3: Gareth Price and that that that footage on Spotlight that
Speaker 3: anyone hasn't seen each let's just go back and it's
Speaker 3: an extraordinary just interaction, all caught on camera. What goes
Speaker 3: through your mind when you're preparing to do a door
Speaker 3: knock like that.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing is you just don't want to.
Speaker 1: You don't want to, you don't want them to walk away,
Speaker 1: you know. That's the biggest thing. It's the It's the availability,
Speaker 1: you know, because you've got so many things going on
Speaker 1: in your head that you want to ask. There are
Speaker 1: so many questions. In this case is just a classic example.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many different facets. We've only
Speaker 1: just touched on a few, you know, in the last
Speaker 1: half an hour, but there are so many things you
Speaker 1: and you want that time. That time is so precious
Speaker 1: to him, you know. And you know that because of
Speaker 1: the nature of these characters involved, and they're all they're
Speaker 1: all pretty much I've got to say, over the years,
Speaker 1: they're all pretty much the same type of character. At
Speaker 1: the end of the day, despite how tough and rough
Speaker 1: and you know, buff they might look, tendency is for
Speaker 1: them to turn and walk, run or hide. So that's
Speaker 1: the biggest thing. It's just the availability. I mean, Garet's
Speaker 1: an interesting example because he decided he just wanted to talk.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether that was some substance talking for
Speaker 1: him or what having. I haven't seen his evidence at
Speaker 1: the coroner's quest. Yeah, it was very much the same
Speaker 1: type of.
Speaker 3: Stream of consciousness type of narrative that did he once
Speaker 3: he opened his mouth, it seemed like he couldn't stop.
Speaker 3: But finding the use the same word, finding the little
Speaker 3: colonel's in there. Finding what was useful was the tricky
Speaker 3: bit there. And it was a little bit the same
Speaker 3: with the interview you did with him. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: he went from you know, wanting you to leave to
Speaker 3: offering you a cup of coffee. But then you know,
Speaker 3: when you pressed him a little bit, you know, he
Speaker 3: didn't bully him or anything. You just ask firm but
Speaker 3: fair questions. The trauma of it all seemed to bubble
Speaker 3: to the surface. That's what That's what That's what hit me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you'd spot on that there was a
Speaker 1: troubled soul there, There's no doubt about that. But it
Speaker 1: was a bit like hurting cats y. Yeah, he's clearly
Speaker 1: got things going on subconsciously under the surface, you know,
Speaker 1: more than he'd care to admit. I think, And I'm
Speaker 1: still not sure. I got the impression very clearly that
Speaker 1: he still wasn't talking freely, if I can put it
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 2: But also with David Simmons, though you know, that was
Speaker 2: obviously a totally different interview, how did you find that?
Speaker 1: Well, that again, unfortunately, that was there wasn't enough time
Speaker 1: and space there, you know, because he was preoccupied in
Speaker 1: going to court for his nth appearance over another matter.
Speaker 1: So he was preoccupied. And he doesn't like a camera.
Speaker 1: Not many people do, I've got to say. But he
Speaker 1: just didn't want to be there, did he.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was apparent. And as you say, it's physical
Speaker 3: space as well. I mean so the third the third
Speaker 3: interview did literally on a doorstep, sort of through a
Speaker 3: door and then through Brighton's father. But yeah, look, having
Speaker 3: tried to interview people on those steps countless times, the
Speaker 3: sliding doors don't help you. The security guards can't help you.
Speaker 3: The only advantage of that is that there is only
Speaker 3: one way in and out of Perth Magistrates Call, and
Speaker 3: it's all glass frontage, so you could see them coming,
Speaker 3: but they can also see you waiting, so it can
Speaker 3: can turn into a bit of a cat and mouse stalemate.
Speaker 3: Burrow as we call them in the business, when they
Speaker 3: just wait at the cafe and hope the camera men
Speaker 3: will go away, which they sometimes do after four o'clock,
Speaker 3: you know, when shift changes and all that. But yeah, Simmons, Yeah, again,
Speaker 3: just evasive. That's the way he comes across this way.
Speaker 3: He came across at the at the inquest so evasive
Speaker 3: that he didn't turn up for the first day.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that. I still can't believe. I still
Speaker 1: struggle with that. I also struggle with the lady who
Speaker 1: was with him at the court when we tried to
Speaker 1: talk to him on both those occasions within the space
Speaker 1: of what hour and a half two hours. How do
Speaker 1: you get people who hang around these other people without
Speaker 1: it and actually turn around to you when you're trying
Speaker 1: to ask a question.
Speaker 3: I think it is a combination of loyalty. You know,
Speaker 3: family loyalty goes a long way, particularly in Western Australia
Speaker 3: and particularly in certain parts of Western Australia, and definitely
Speaker 3: an indigenous families. You know that loyalty is beaked in
Speaker 3: to borrow a phrase from Justice League, albeit misguided layl
Speaker 3: sometimes yes sometimes or you can be and then there
Speaker 3: is we're going back to our original point, there's an
Speaker 3: intransigence that people don't want to believe that they've been wrong.
Speaker 3: And when you've when you've stuck by someone's side for
Speaker 3: so long, and then it starts to look like you
Speaker 3: might have been misguided, misled, whatever, it takes a long time.
Speaker 3: It can't take a long time to let go of
Speaker 3: that belief that that you'd hail for so long and
Speaker 3: it's being told or being presented with evidence that shows
Speaker 3: you might have back wrong horse here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I expect.
Speaker 2: That from family, but I don't expect it from police.
Speaker 3: Well, police are a family and they do stick together.
Speaker 2: Particularly I meant in terms of David Simmons, like the
Speaker 2: bench weren't for example, when you didn't turn up that
Speaker 2: the police opposed the breat bench warrant. And when David
Speaker 2: Simmons did turn up, not to the same court, not
Speaker 2: to the actual court, but by video link, they didn't
Speaker 2: ask any questions of him. I mean, that's just phenomenal.
Speaker 3: That bothered me at the time. I just thought that
Speaker 3: was the warrant. I could I could sort of, I
Speaker 3: could sort of see because you know, if you go,
Speaker 3: if you know, if you're barge in, bag him up.
Speaker 3: You know, he spends the night in custody. Whatever is
Speaker 3: he Is he going to be any is he going
Speaker 3: to answer any questions? Is he going to be in
Speaker 3: any fit state? Too? You know, so I could sort
Speaker 3: of see that. But when they did get him there, Look,
Speaker 3: it wasn't a Bartlet interrogation, let me put it that way.
Speaker 3: There was there was questions that weren't asked. There were
Speaker 3: questions that were asked, you know, with answers sort of
Speaker 3: built into them. It was it was very it was
Speaker 3: a very strange last couple of days to that in quest.
Speaker 1: But why did they do that? Tim?
Speaker 3: I don't I couldn't. I can't. I couldn't work that out.
Speaker 3: I couldn't work that out them. I don't know. But
Speaker 3: what I do remember is Anna Davy just the you
Speaker 3: could just feel the frustration, you know, already built up
Speaker 3: over seven odd years of trying to you know, advocate
Speaker 3: for her niece and just you know, a lot of
Speaker 3: people put a lot of stock in in quests because
Speaker 3: they are public and a lot of people, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not just in Western Australia. A lot of people
Speaker 3: come out of in quests disappointed, because they they very
Speaker 3: rarely bring the answers that people that families hope too.
Speaker 3: But this one, this one, I felt that Anna's frustration
Speaker 3: and anger and was was was justified.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by your observations. Can we just stay with
Speaker 1: this for a minute, because this is really interesting because Allison,
Speaker 1: as you know, Tim has been to a whole heap
Speaker 1: of these like you know, this has these for breakfast,
Speaker 1: these inquests and no. But I'm fascinated by your observation, Tim,
Speaker 1: because because I got that feeling just reading the coronial summary,
Speaker 1: you know, reading the whole sort of decision at the
Speaker 1: end of the day by Corona Linton, I mean, and
Speaker 1: that stayed with me. But you were there, you were
Speaker 1: in the room to sort of witness this, you know.
Speaker 1: And this is how many years after the after Amy's death?
Speaker 1: How many it was far.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty one? Yeah, so it was twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: Seven years, so seven years afterward, seven years afterward, and
Speaker 1: they're still banging on about suicide. And the Currenter seems
Speaker 1: to be from all the official notes that I read,
Speaker 1: seems to be still very user friendly on the suicide angle.
Speaker 1: And then in the end saying you know what, I
Speaker 1: can't quite go there. I'm a bit I'm almost frightened
Speaker 1: to say, yes, it was suicide. So you know what
Speaker 1: I'll do. I'll make an open finding. I'll make an
Speaker 1: open finding. So this will sort of partly please the police,
Speaker 1: but this will also partly please the family. But it's
Speaker 1: not really it's not a finding. It's a two bull
Speaker 1: each way. And there you go and all over, guys.
Speaker 1: So if you've got any new evidence, see you, see
Speaker 1: you next year, a year after. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I just can't. I can't wrap my head around that.
Speaker 1: So that's why I'm fascinated to hear your take on it,
Speaker 1: because it backs up, It backs up. Not that I
Speaker 1: need that reinforcement, but you know what I mean, because
Speaker 1: you were there and you sort of witness the atmosphere
Speaker 1: as well, because it's all part of it, isn't It's
Speaker 1: not just the words on paper. It's all part of it.
Speaker 1: And also I can't can I just go back again?
Speaker 1: And I don't want to bang on, but I just
Speaker 1: want to go back again because throughout my career I've
Speaker 1: read a lot of the sort of psychoanalysis on eyewitnesses,
Speaker 1: witness accounts. Tim I'm sure you've done the same thing,
Speaker 1: probably read the same sort of books and papers, academic papers.
Speaker 1: One of the things people say, people who are experts
Speaker 1: in this sort of psychological field and areas of forensic psychiatry,
Speaker 1: one of the things they constantly refer back to is
Speaker 1: the concept of contemporaneous notes, especially with the passage of time,
Speaker 1: even more so, the emphasis is on contemporaneous notes. And
Speaker 1: they say, to find out what really happened, the best
Speaker 1: way is not to rely on the witnesses or the
Speaker 1: cross examinations five, six, seven years later, ten years later,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. It's to go back and have a
Speaker 1: look at the source notes, the contemporaneous notes of the
Speaker 1: day in question, or the night in question, whatever it
Speaker 1: may be. And I think all the experts agree with that.
Speaker 1: And if you go back to that night, to the
Speaker 1: immediacy of that night, and you look at those notes,
Speaker 1: you look at those three uniforms that turned up, you know, Roberts, Dixon, Blanford,
Speaker 1: they all say, and we can go ahead and quote
Speaker 1: them now, I won't bore you with the details because
Speaker 1: it's been through our episodes. They all say they were
Speaker 1: highly suspicious. This looked highly suspicious. This did not look
Speaker 1: anything like a suicide. They make various references the way
Speaker 1: Constable Roberts found her, the way Constable Dixon observed the
Speaker 1: other people who were present, the way Constable Blandford interacted
Speaker 1: with them, and what he saw in that bedroom, all
Speaker 1: the contemporaneous notes. It's only when Wiedeman and Kirkman, who
Speaker 1: were since found to be derelict in their duty, it's
Speaker 1: when they get there that that changes. None of those
Speaker 1: three uniforms, none of them, not one of them until
Speaker 1: they got to the coroner's court seven years later, were
Speaker 1: ever formally interviewed by any of those coppers. And that's
Speaker 1: an absolute disgrace.
Speaker 3: That staggers me. They're police officers for craaky Moses. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's not like you wouldn't be able to find them.
Speaker 3: It's not like they weren't willing to come forward. They
Speaker 3: were desperate. They were desperate to give their view of
Speaker 3: the events of that night, and which was evident when
Speaker 3: they finally got to the coroner's court. They were apologetic
Speaker 3: to Amy's family, They cried, they physically interacted with Anna,
Speaker 3: hugged it after they'd finished giving their their evidence. So
Speaker 3: for that to be the first and as you say, Liam,
Speaker 3: so you've got it's logic, isn't it. The closer you
Speaker 3: are to the day, the better your memory is going
Speaker 3: to be. And that's core principle throughout the you know,
Speaker 3: the entire justice system, and whenever and whatever crime or
Speaker 3: court case I'm reporting on, the closer you are to
Speaker 3: the source, the first statement you give is always going
Speaker 3: to be you would think, more accurate than the second, third,
Speaker 3: and fourth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't have to go to Oxford to figure
Speaker 1: that out.
Speaker 3: Well, and I've just you know, having sat through the
Speaker 3: Reynolds and Heans defamation just recently, the contemporaneous notes of
Speaker 3: Fiona Brown about what happened in that week after Brittany
Speaker 3: came forward. They hold so much weight now because Justice Lea,
Speaker 3: in his defamation judgment on Bruce Luhrman said, that's it,
Speaker 3: that's what happened, That's what I believe happened that day.
Speaker 3: Because that is a highly competent chief of staff public
Speaker 3: servant for twenty plus years writing contemporaneous notes not an
Speaker 3: hour after that meeting, So of course that I'm going
Speaker 3: to trust that rather than what everyone else says, spot
Speaker 3: on spot.
Speaker 2: On maybe we need to lobby for justice.
Speaker 3: Leep, he's a man in high demand. He was in
Speaker 3: Western Australia this weekend talking about funny enough, how courts
Speaker 3: should not be doing as many suppression unders as they
Speaker 3: are lim But that's another.
Speaker 1: Podcast for that's a great podcast. There's another podcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But as you say, gone back to the Coroner's Court,
Speaker 3: the Coroner's Act in this state, they have some of
Speaker 3: the most swinging powers that any judicial officer can use.
Speaker 3: They can subpoena people, they can lock people up for
Speaker 3: not giving evidence. They can do a lot of things.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, their remit is
Speaker 3: to find a cause of death. And they often say
Speaker 3: I can't lay blame personally, but I can refer to
Speaker 3: another authority, be at the DPP or the police or whatever.
Speaker 2: That's so important.
Speaker 3: But as you say, in this case, for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: Sarah Linton, who I've sat through many of her in
Speaker 3: quests and I've always found a very empathetic, very sympathetic person.
Speaker 3: In this case, I feel that she gave too much
Speaker 3: weight to the wrong pieces of evidence, let's put it
Speaker 3: that way, And particularly the episode two episodes ago where
Speaker 3: you went through the forensic analysis experts. Two separate ones,
Speaker 3: never met each other, didn't consult with each other, came
Speaker 3: up with exactly the same.
Speaker 1: Finding, incredible, one from Perth, one from Sydney.
Speaker 3: Exactly the same find, which was simple Amy could not
Speaker 3: have shot herself exactly.
Speaker 1: Then we brought the expert over from the US and
Speaker 1: what a surprise, he came up with the same conclusion.
Speaker 1: So there's three independent experts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so going back to the coronial, you've got that
Speaker 3: didn't have your crimecy an expert. But two out of
Speaker 3: three ain't bad, I think meat Love one said, then
Speaker 3: you've got the three police officers that first came up,
Speaker 3: and then you've got all those gaps in the timeline.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's it. This is the holy trinity for me.
Speaker 1: You've got the timelines by major crime, you've got the
Speaker 1: contemporaneous notes by the three uniforms who turn up first
Speaker 1: and foremost and see everything fresh. And the third one,
Speaker 1: the third part of that trifector is the left hand
Speaker 1: right hand. So the left hand's got a burnmark on it.
Speaker 1: But the burnmark forensically has been proven to come from
Speaker 1: the muzzle, not the trigger, so she can't have pulled
Speaker 1: the trigger with a left hand impossible from the forensic
Speaker 1: scientific you know analysis, not not my opinion, just scientific analysis.
Speaker 1: She's sitting on a right hand, sitting on a right hand,
Speaker 1: so she can't pull it with a left hand, can't
Speaker 1: pull it with a right hand. I mean, I know. Look,
Speaker 1: I've been watching the Paralympic Games last two weeks and
Speaker 1: they can do some amazing things. You know, seriously, So
Speaker 1: those three things together combined, tim.
Speaker 3: And words matter, right even though the coroner can't, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not like Colombo, and you know she can ask
Speaker 3: one more question right at the end and then you
Speaker 3: can come to a conclusion. But words matter, and the
Speaker 3: weight of a coroner's words matter a lot to authorities
Speaker 3: because it costs a lot of money to put in
Speaker 3: quest on. The coroner's office is a very well funded
Speaker 3: branch of the judicial system in this state. If Sarah
Speaker 3: Linton had had been stronger in her analysis of all
Speaker 3: the elements that we've just gone through, that I believe
Speaker 3: might have triggered a stronger response from other authorities quicker,
Speaker 3: and you know, Mike might not have meant that. Anna
Speaker 3: Davy all those years later, felt like she needs did
Speaker 3: another way to get the case reinvestigated. You know when
Speaker 3: she started talking to you guys.
Speaker 2: Can I say something about Anna, because I think the
Speaker 2: family obviously has made a massive difference, and Anna being
Speaker 2: the one who got the ball rolling straight away. One
Speaker 2: of the things I find with a lot of families
Speaker 2: that come to us with cases is that often they'll
Speaker 2: leave it too late. Where she was on it straight away,
Speaker 2: straight away, So we got the magic crime investigation of
Speaker 2: call case. I mean, really, Anna has been the driving
Speaker 2: force behind all of this. None of this would have
Speaker 2: come about if she hadn't got on there and just
Speaker 2: went I mean, it's just incredible. But one other thing
Speaker 2: I wanted to bring up with a little bit of
Speaker 2: discussion before we close up, because I can't believe there's
Speaker 2: so much to talk about. But in those FI documents,
Speaker 2: now this I didn't put in it. We didn't have
Speaker 2: in the podcast. On page twenty two of those documents
Speaker 2: we got back from WA Police, there's an interesting comment
Speaker 2: in relation to the million dollar rewards in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three that they brought out, and the person one of
Speaker 2: the people working on it said, our two big issues
Speaker 2: where the standard of our coronial files and FDB family
Speaker 2: domestic violence. They're going to say the case study I
Speaker 2: did related to the death of Amy Wensley and a
Speaker 2: poor initial response led to criticism of WA police and
Speaker 2: individual officers in the Coronial Court. This year's theme will
Speaker 2: be welfare, culture and leadership, leaders in times of adversity Leadership.
Speaker 2: So I just thought, there's a cup of concrete, cup
Speaker 2: of concrete.
Speaker 1: Watch out of that podcast. Cup of concrete. It's going
Speaker 1: to be big, Allison. So you spot on at leadership.
Speaker 1: So Anna has shown enormous leadership Anna Davy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you, and Tim does two. You know,
Speaker 1: she's a gem. She's one out of the pack. If
Speaker 1: you ever get in trouble, tell you what if anyone
Speaker 1: ever takes me down a lonely fush tray which they
Speaker 1: made shallow, shallow, shallow grave, I wish Anna was my
Speaker 1: auntie or sister or unbelievable to have in your corner
Speaker 1: as an advocate. Incredible. But moving on to that comment
Speaker 1: in the FOI docs that's from the police what twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. So I'm going to completely contradict myself now
Speaker 1: about the coroner because it doesn't matter now, does it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter the open finding in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: because we moved on three years later, it's not an
Speaker 1: open finding anymore.
Speaker 3: Because that's true.
Speaker 1: It's a homicide inquiry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: We know that from the million dollar reward and the
Speaker 1: new team that's investigating now. But can I just say this, Tim,
Speaker 1: one more thing. Can I just say this, don't underestimate.
Speaker 1: This is coming full circle back to the comments you
Speaker 1: made at the start of this podcast. Don't underestimate the
Speaker 1: lack of quality of leadership in a paramilitary organization such
Speaker 1: as a police force especially. And I'm sad to say
Speaker 1: this because I'm a proud West Dozzie the West Australian
Speaker 1: Police Force, because their track record in leadership is appalling.
Speaker 1: And I mean that in a very personalized way because
Speaker 1: I've had the experience our previous police commissioner, who is
Speaker 1: now the governor, God bless him. I had an experience
Speaker 1: with a TV interview where I asked him some difficult
Speaker 1: questions that were not unreasonable, but they were difficult face
Speaker 1: to face. He did not like being questioned at all,
Speaker 1: to the extent where he then proceeded to ban me
Speaker 1: from appearing on a radio program. I was hosting and
Speaker 1: helped to influence a lot of his senior officers not
Speaker 1: to go on that program either, because hard questions are
Speaker 1: just off the radar. So what I'm saying is, don't
Speaker 1: underestimate the pettiness of a response, even from people who
Speaker 1: are charged with duties in very high places. And I'm
Speaker 1: not suggesting Cold Blanche is of a similar petty, immature nature.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that necessarily, and I certainly hope that's
Speaker 1: not the case, But I'm just saying, don't underestimate the
Speaker 1: power of the personal in holding up important investigations such
Speaker 1: as this.
Speaker 3: Well, from my outside perspective, the police force is obviously,
Speaker 3: as you say, paramilitary, charged with protecting and investigating, but
Speaker 3: they are also a massive bureaucracy. And what we all
Speaker 3: know of massive bureaucracies are there are shifting sands, there
Speaker 3: are political polls, there are power plays, there are clashing personalities,
Speaker 3: and I think all of those have come into play
Speaker 3: in this case, unfortunately for Anna, because for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: where their old mate was just going on leave like
Speaker 3: it might you know what, And that really gets my
Speaker 3: goat Liam that all this ten years, it seems to me,
Speaker 3: was because one Copper didn't want to do the paperwork
Speaker 3: because he was going on and leave the next day.
Speaker 3: And from that simple human error, all this can flow
Speaker 3: and which is disappointing in itself, right w A police,
Speaker 3: You're right, the higher up you go in bureaucracies, the
Speaker 3: less leaders like to be questioned hard. And you know,
Speaker 3: you can take any bureaucracy for that, and s policing
Speaker 3: in particular because they're not used to it, if for one,
Speaker 3: and it can expose those leaders to those shifting sands,
Speaker 3: personality clashes, ambition, whatever. So from what I've seen of
Speaker 3: cole Blant at his time, he's he's not afraid to
Speaker 3: front the media. He has his particular investigations and and
Speaker 3: Area's investigation that he that he that he that he
Speaker 3: obviously enjoys and likes and and funds. And I hope
Speaker 3: that he would would be big enough and brave enough
Speaker 3: to come on here on this podcast in the next
Speaker 3: six or seven weeks when we do these conversations and
Speaker 3: answer some of those questions, because they're still unanswered, and
Speaker 3: that's after ten years, that that has to be seen
Speaker 3: as a lack of something from WA police.
Speaker 1: That's the bottom line.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what leadership is. Right now, I just want
Speaker 2: to say one other thing. After that million dollar reward
Speaker 2: was announced or wars being organized, Craig, who was the
Speaker 2: officer in charge of the Special Crime scored homicide. Again
Speaker 2: this wasn't in the podcast now. He wrote back and said,
Speaker 2: as part of these emails we got under fy we
Speaker 2: don't classify as debt as either a homicide or a suicide,
Speaker 2: but an open investigation into her death. At present, we
Speaker 2: have not received any information that can assist us in
Speaker 2: the investigation into the death Amy. The investigation roomain, it's
Speaker 2: open and in line with the current fighting, will remain open.
Speaker 1: Well, that's right. I mean, here's on news flash. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you need to actually go out, get out of the
Speaker 1: office to find the evidence. You can't just sit there
Speaker 1: and wait for the crime stoppers extension to ring. So
Speaker 1: hopefully this new team when they say a new team,
Speaker 1: because this is a very sort of obtuse sort of
Speaker 1: you know, it's not a task force, it's a team,
Speaker 1: new team, and it was there an old team. I
Speaker 1: don't really think so. So a new team, are they
Speaker 1: actively proactively investigating? Are they actually going out and doing
Speaker 1: such as what we did and we talked about Tim
Speaker 1: knocking on the door and saying, excuse me, excuse me, David,
Speaker 1: we'd like to have a word, mate. That's a genuine question.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not being a smart ass. I'm actually
Speaker 1: asking a genuine question. But hopefully somebody somewhere doesn't have
Speaker 1: already a glass jaw that can just talk about the
Speaker 1: case openly and try to find you know, and try
Speaker 1: to help us put the public pressure on finding the
Speaker 1: actual truth. It's not really asking too much.
Speaker 2: So all they have to do is compile a new
Speaker 2: brief put it to the dp.
Speaker 1: Well, there's been briefs, and Tim, you'll back me up
Speaker 1: on this. There's been briefs given to the TPP that
Speaker 1: look a lot shallower than this one, which have resulted
Speaker 1: in a trial.
Speaker 3: And again, I hate to go back to it, but
Speaker 3: the DPP is also under its own pressures. But they
Speaker 3: are bound by the law, right and so it's pretty
Speaker 3: black and white for the DPP. If they don't think
Speaker 3: there is a case there, then they can go back
Speaker 3: to the police and say there's not enough. And then
Speaker 3: the police can go Okay, we'll keep looking, or the
Speaker 3: police will go, well we've done and We've chased on
Speaker 3: every lead and you know we've done everything we can.
Speaker 3: So's that's not a one, one time deal. You don't
Speaker 3: just get to go do the DPP once and so
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's a it's an ongoing thing. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know Clearmont, they had they had DPP people sat
Speaker 3: in the same office as the police and as the prosecutor,
Speaker 3: all working together, so to get that case together right,
Speaker 3: ready for a whatever it might be a trial or
Speaker 3: or you know, a sentencing or whatever it would have
Speaker 3: turned out. And that happens all the time. John quickly
Speaker 3: for whatever is and says, no, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: direct the police to do it. I haven't got the
Speaker 3: power to direct the police to do it, of course,
Speaker 3: But you know, a lunch maybe with with Rob Owens
Speaker 3: and a new team leader from Operation Mix or whatever
Speaker 3: they're calling it. Now, you know you can you can
Speaker 3: talk about these things. Surely you can talk about these things.
Speaker 1: Does he have a Google calendar stick it in that?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's exactly right, That's exactly right. When
Speaker 1: they have a round table. So guys, okay, how else
Speaker 1: do we strategize the Well, what sort of approach are
Speaker 1: we making at the moment. What are we actually doing?
Speaker 1: What are we doing with this new team? How many
Speaker 1: people on it? You know, who are we talking to?
Speaker 1: Are you know? If we chase down all the leads,
Speaker 1: can we go back and interview the same people again?
Speaker 1: Can we call them in for another another chat? Can
Speaker 1: we go back and cross reference various statements that have
Speaker 1: been made in the past. I mean, there's a million
Speaker 1: things you can do, right Can we.
Speaker 2: Check the veracity of Joshua Bryan's timeline of whether it
Speaker 2: was there or not?
Speaker 1: You think you think, given the information that we've had
Speaker 1: in recent weeks, you think that would be the first thing,
Speaker 1: As I say, but there are so many There are
Speaker 1: so many. This is a grab bag of inconsistencies this case.
Speaker 1: And we've heard it on this podcast time and time
Speaker 1: again from other people much more learned than ourselves, that
Speaker 1: they have been high profile cases which have resulted in
Speaker 1: a conviction around Australia, which have been taken and briefed
Speaker 1: and double briefed, and charges have been with less material
Speaker 1: than is on the table right now in Amy's case.
Speaker 2: The family is better.
Speaker 3: We've all said something, but I just wanted to again
Speaker 3: pay tribute to Anna, because without hearing, none of this
Speaker 3: would have happened. I know it's a cliche, but it's true.
Speaker 3: She came up to me and another journalist actually, who
Speaker 3: were the only two on the first morning of Amy's
Speaker 3: in quest, because I'd never heard and I keep going
Speaker 3: back to that after seven years, I'd never heard of
Speaker 3: this case until that first day of that in quest.
Speaker 3: And we went and myself and I'll give him a
Speaker 3: name check David Webber from the ABC. Yeah, good friend,
Speaker 3: great journo, old schools, a bit like yourself, good load,
Speaker 3: Dave yea. And we sat there and listened to the
Speaker 3: opening and looked at each other and went at this
Speaker 3: before well where's this being? Where's this come from? And
Speaker 3: we listened and we listened, and then we were stood
Speaker 3: up side the court at lunch time saying the same thing,
Speaker 3: and Anna being Anna, just came straight up to us
Speaker 3: put her hand out. Hello, I'm Anna, I mean Amy's niece.
Speaker 3: Can I talk to you about her? For five minutes
Speaker 3: and went he of course, I rang the desk and
Speaker 3: I said, this is this inquest, man, this is this
Speaker 3: is something. This is something weirds going on here, and
Speaker 3: you know, you you try and boil three three hours
Speaker 3: of evidence down into you know, a two minute phone
Speaker 3: call your news desk, trying to squeeze it in. And
Speaker 3: I said, look, I'm I'm just going to stick with
Speaker 3: it this this week because this is interesting and disturbing
Speaker 3: and confronting and a little bit troubling. That's what I did.
Speaker 3: Wrote a feature on the for the Sunday paper, and
Speaker 3: Anna being Anna, rang me and said, thank you, thank me,
Speaker 3: thank me. I've been there a week. She've been doing
Speaker 3: it seven years and she was thanking me. So that's
Speaker 3: the that's the measure of the woman, and the measure
Speaker 3: of the care that she has for Amy and her
Speaker 3: family and for the truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a quality character, isn't it so good?
Speaker 2: As Anna said, she had to do it because Nancy couldn't.
Speaker 2: Nancy was broken. She had to step up. And those
Speaker 2: little girls six and four, you know, So that's that's
Speaker 2: who we're doing for, and they deserve the truth.
Speaker 1: I agree. I totally agree. They're a lovely family. And
Speaker 1: the girls. I'll tell you what the Asseid test is.
Speaker 1: If you meet the girls now as teenagers, aren't they Allison?
Speaker 1: You'll back me up on this. I mean there's such lovely, balanced,
Speaker 1: intelligent girls. The family has done an amazing job of
Speaker 1: nurturing that development since that tragedy of their mum dying
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, that's just yeah, it's quite extraordinary actually,
Speaker 1: and that's the measure. That's the measure of the whole family.
Speaker 1: But but you know, coming back full circle, that's the
Speaker 1: other thing about John Quigley, our state's attorney general. He says,
Speaker 1: and this will be an issue, tim this is going
Speaker 1: to be a big issue. Here's another newsflash for the government.
Speaker 1: Roger cooks out in about just yesterday on the virtually
Speaker 1: on the Hustings. It's the sort of phantom election campaigns
Speaker 1: because they've got to go to the polls next it's
Speaker 1: next March, next March, so that's a very short space
Speaker 1: of time with the Christmas break, it's not very far away.
Speaker 1: So this is and you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: they will campaign very strongly on. You can see it
Speaker 1: rip large already. You don't have to be nostrodamus to
Speaker 1: figure this out. Domestic violence and support for domestic violence victims.
Speaker 1: And I'm saying to John Quigley right now, John, if
Speaker 1: you think mate that you're going to get up on
Speaker 1: the hustings and bang the drum on behalf of the
Speaker 1: government even though he's leaving. If you think you're going
Speaker 1: to say, hey, listen, we're doing all we can for
Speaker 1: domestic violence victims. And you've got the case of Amy
Speaker 1: Wensley sitting here steering you in the face, which you
Speaker 1: refuse to do anything about. You've got another thing coming
Speaker 1: because you will be called out on it and your
Speaker 1: government will suffer as a result. It's as simple as that.
Speaker 1: It's going to be. It's going to be a very
Speaker 1: very touchy subject.
Speaker 3: And there's always another Attorney General coming. There has to
Speaker 3: be an Attorney general. So whomever is going to be
Speaker 3: moving into that office there might have a burning file
Speaker 3: in their inbox when they get there.
Speaker 1: Maybe not make the same mistake twice, but there's still
Speaker 1: a lot of time for him to take some action,
Speaker 1: do something to him, hope.
Speaker 2: So I hope it doesn't take that long. I hope
Speaker 2: it doesn't take that long. All right, Well, thank you
Speaker 2: so much. I think. Look, we've got so much to discuss.
Speaker 2: Tom person is going to join us again, our counselor
Speaker 2: who's an end Yes, so it'll be good to catch
Speaker 2: up with him. So Laura Richard's the criminal analyst, famous international.
Speaker 2: She's going to be joining us on this program as well.
Speaker 2: There's a few other names that I'm just cross referencing
Speaker 2: at the moment. So I hope everyone's enjoyed this our
Speaker 2: first conversations and look forward to setting you boys again.
Speaker 1: So well, very hard for anyone to say no to you, Allison.
Speaker 1: So who knows who's coming up?
Speaker 3: Amen? How did I end up here?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: I mean it's all serious, thoroughly enjoyed listening. I've been
Speaker 3: a listener, you know. I've been getting the the episodes
Speaker 3: slightly earlier than everyone else, but I've been looking forward
Speaker 3: to everyone. So thank you for involving me. Thank you
Speaker 3: for the conversation this morning. And yeah, just let's just hope,
Speaker 3: hope that we can keep the pressure on and get
Speaker 3: to the truth.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you Tim for all your hard work,
Speaker 1: and Allison you especially for coordinating everything and pushing and
Speaker 1: pushing and pushing because that's what we need on this
Speaker 1: So thank you.
Speaker 2: Team Epic, Team Eppet always is it has to be.
Speaker 3: We'll speak next week and to only be her again