The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see aside of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Today, I had the privilege of sitting down having a chat with former New South Wales Deputy State Coroner Hugh Dylon. I say privilege because Hugh shares a passion very much aligned with what I considered the most important I had
as a homicide detective. That was looking after the families of people who have died in the tragic, violent and unusual circumstances, bringing whatever comfort possible to the deceased. Families by providing answers as to what happened to their loved
ones and where possible prevent unnecessary deaths. Throughout his career, Hugh presided over more than three hundred inquests, including the horrific School of Happiness case where one man hunted police with a crossbow in the middle of the night during the Hippie festival. He also oversaw murders, suicides, and tragic accidental deaths.
As you'll find.
Out in our discussion, the coroner's court is filled with sadness. In the motion, Hugh takes us through the cases of the oversaw, how the system can be improved, and the personal impact of dealing with death on a daily basis. Hugh Dylan, thanks for coming on I Catch Killers.
It's a great pleasure. Gren very nice to see you again.
Well, it is good to see you, and I always I had a lot of respect for the role that you did as a coroner, and you were the deputy state coroner or is a coroner for nine years. Yes, that's right, and in prepping for it, I believe that you oversaw probably three hundred roughly three hundred question.
Yeah, it's a bit hard to work. It out exactly, but a round about three hundred, I'd.
Say, yeah, it's a lot.
And I don't think people fully appreciate the impact that the coroner's court has. I found it in all the areas of policing I work. That's when I saw the most emotion at coroner's courts, because you're talking about someone's died. That's generally what the inquest is about. And you've got the families and loved ones there holding on to hope or trying to get answers.
Is that how you felt?
Yeah, Look, it's a surprising place. It's a surprising niche in the legal system, and most people in the law, most people in society have no idea. But I can remember the first day I went to the coroner's court. I was a new magistrate and I was really surprised by it. Apart from anything else. The coroners were doing this, this kind of work that no other lawyers in our
society do. And also they're working in teams and as you say, their concern is or who has died, how they've died, why they've died, but also what can we say to the families and the families My father was a coroner's case himself around about forty years ago, and I remember, I remember very very well getting the news that he died suddenly, and the shock and the confusion
that that throws you into. So to walk into this place as a coroner, and to try and grapple with that confusion, the bewilderment, and of course the sadness was somewhat bewildering to me as well. But Garry I really liked being a coroner, and some people would be astonished to hear me say that, I guess, because of course you're right. It is a very sad place in lots
of ways. Families are devastated, they're confused, one answers. Sometimes they have interesting theories about how someone they love has died. Some of those theories are right, but some of them are wrong. And it's very difficult to walk people into the evidence and through it and then bring them to some sort of understanding, some sense of what happened. I think some people might call this sense making, you know, how do we make sense of these terrible events.
There's a lot of expectation when people get to the
coroner's court. I saw that over the years with families and it's almost like, Okay, the answer is going to be forthcoming when the matter gets to the coroner's court, and I think meeting the family's expectation or that's a difficult part too, because sometimes the facts don't present the way the family expected it to, and quite often the evidence that is given at a coronial inquest is quite confronting to the families and loved ones of the deceased person.
Well, that's right, And although you're always very glad as a coroner if you have found the answers, there are lots of cases where you don't, and you, as a homicide or an ex homicide detective, would be very familiar with some of those cases. You know, there are unsolved homicides as well as you know all the I want to call them happy endings, but they're cases in which
there is an answer for people. And to leave people without answers is it's not only very frustrating, but it's also very sad because you can't help empathizing and feeling for them but also with them. You know, if you lose a daughter, you know, I'm thinking about my daughter as I'm talking to you about you losing yours. What a shattering and incomplete kind of sense of life you might have. So, as I say, sometimes you can provide answers and that can give people a sense of resolution.
I don't believe there's any such thing as closure. I think that's a false hope.
I'm glad you say that, and that tells me you understand the situation that families go through. And I got clipped very early in my career when use the word closure to a family and they pointed out very very clear to me, it's not the closure. You never get closure from that. And that's what happens when and it's not always homicide. If someone's I would find that in the courrner's court. Those tragic accidents are hard to deal with too, because I look at homicide and often the
families can allocate blame to a particular person. Where there's accidents where there's the fault, like there's built up anger and sadness and that it's nowhere to channel it.
That's right, and I think the families of missing people have a particularly onerous load to bear. I guess if you can bury your your loved ones, you can have a sense of not camp or anything like that. But you can say goodbye, but all you have is your last memories of them, and then they disappear off the face of the earth. How do you deal with that? I really don't know, and I never really learned how to how to give people a sense of peace or
any sense of forward movement. I think the only thing you can do for people where their loved ones disappear is respect, recognition. You know, we will do our best to find out what happened, but sometimes the answer is beyond reach.
That's not there.
I saw with families on missing persons cases quite often that I felt like it was a step that helped them in processing what had happened when the coroner would declare the person deceased. Because what I've seen with families and friends of people who have just disappeared, they always hang on to that smidge and of hope that the person's going to walk through the door one day and they're going to yell at the person, go what have you done? And then they're going to give each other
a big cuddle and get on with their lives. So I think sometimes they hold on to hope, and quite often I've seen it in cranial inquest where the coroner's declared the person deceased manner and cause might have known, but believe that the person is deceased because of checks that have been done, and I feel like it's a step forward. But the coroner's court I always found the
expectations were high by the families. It was a lot of it's built up like if the investigation into the death of someone hasn't revealed the information or the person responsible. Quite often the hope is, well, we'll get the answers at the coroner's court. But that's not always the way, and that must have carried hard on you being a coroner, that the family is steering. But where else do we go? And the sad part is sometimes there is nowhere else to go after the coroner's court.
Yeah, and it's very frustrating. And from time to time I think coroners I think they fail people by not saying what they really think. Sometimes, I think, and I've seen this happen, particularly within experienced coroners, they will simply because they know how sad people are and how hard it will hit them. If you say I think your loved one is dead, they say, oh, well, you know
the evidence isn't quite sufficient, so maybe they're still soften that. Yeah, And I to be honest, I think that does not help people cope with what has actually happened. If someone has disappeared and they've I mean very occasionally people do turn up. I know, we all know that, but it is so rare. It's just once in many, many blue moons.
And I think as a coroner you have a duty of care both to the dead in respect to them, but also to the families to be upfront with families and say, the investigation has got this far, we don't know precisely what happened, but your loved one more than likely is dead. We can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, aps but it's almost certain. So that's all we can do.
I think.
I think that's kind of false hope. Can be a very cruel thing if false hope is offered out. So I think roll of a coroner and that is quite often the final step for families trying to find out what's happened to their loved one, especially with people who disappeared. Tell us what was your story into becoming a coroner?
Ah?
Well, I obviously did a law degree in Australia, coroners are lawyers. In New South Bales, they're all magistrates. I did some legal research, I worked for a judge, I worked for the New South Bale's ombudsman, and then I got a job as a Comwealth prosecutor. So I worked for the Commonwealth DPP for a number of years. Then
I was appointed a magistrate. Did about twelve years as a magistrate and I was on the point of leaving the magistracy and my friend Mary Durham, who was the new state coroner, heard that I was contemplating leaving and she got in touch with me and asked me whether i'd like to have a go as a coroner. And to be honest, I thought, oh my god, this is so depressing, this kind of work. But I really liked Mary, and she said, well, she said a few flattering things about me, so I found it out to say no
to her, to be me very forthros, very forthright. She also is very persuasive, and I thought, okay, well, I've put off going to the bar for six months, I'll go and see what this is like. You know, all experience is good experience, and I really when I got there, I really liked the work, partly because I was working with really good people like Mary. But one of the things i'd really missed as a magistrate was working in
a team. And Gary, you know what it's like working in teams most homicide cases.
You share the pressure, so the pressure.
But it's also sharing ideas and a community, a small community, a team can generate more ideas than a bunch of single individuals, definitely, and so strangely enough, although the work could be very confronting and very sad and saddening, I really enjoyed working with the team of people I was working with. So instead of leaving after six months, I stayed and I just stayed on until basically the chief magistrate said, well, your time's up. You've had enough time
here and you're coming back to the local court. And I thought, well, no, I'm not. I like being a coroner. I don't want to be a magistrate anymore. So that's when I.
Left, decide to leave.
It's funny that you get rotated, or a tap on the shoulder that you've been there too long. I would imagine something in the role of a pathway as a coroner, you'd be learning all the time. Yeah, yeah, you'd be learning how not just the processes in place, but how to deal with families and all that. I could imagine every day you went to work.
Look, I think that's absolutely right. And I remember saying too, we had this rotation, three year rotation thing, and I remember saying to the Chief Magistrate, I don't think I was any good at this job until I've been in it for two years, that makes sense. And then so three years I'm just starting really to get good at it. And I thought I wasn't an expert coroner until i'd been doing it for five years. But look, after I left,
I've done further study. I've done a PhD, which is a study of then you Saitho's coronial system, and I've learned so much more. So I know that you're absolutely right. Nine years I was learning all the time, and since I left the Coroner's Court, I've been learning even more. So you need to stay in these jobs to get really good at that.
Well, it is a specialist field. I would imagine that the role of a magistrate as compared to the role of a current is vastly different.
Very very different. A magistrate's job is primarily running small summary trials and sentencing. So some days you sit in a court and sentence people who are pleading guilty to various things. Other days you have hearings. You might do bails and apprehended violence applications and that sort of stuff. After a while, it becomes very repetitious. You'd become to be perfectly honest, I think I was quite a good magistrate. But practice makes perfect and you're doing a lot of practice.
So after a couple of years of that, I think I was pretty pretty good at it. After five years of it, I really needed a change, and so I did civil civil cases mainly. And again, it took me about five years before I thought I was experted that, and then the coroner's job came on.
Okay, can you explain what the role of the coroner's court is? So I obviously aware of it, but if you could explain to the listeners, because I think there's a misconception on some of the aspects of coroner's courts what their role is.
If you could explain, it's death investigation, So if someone dies suddenly or in an unexplained or difficult to understand way, or due to an unnatural cause, accidents, suicide, homicides, these sort of things in our society, and since the twelfth century actually there have been coroners who investigated these sudden, unexplained or unnatural deaths. The coroners are one of the oldest legal institutions in the world and so Australia imported
coroners when first Fleet arrived. The first in quest in Australia was in December seventeen eighty eight a convict diet and a inquest was held. And so we've had this two hundred and fifty odd years of people inquiring into how a death came about. And it's a very different process from a criminal trial, as you're well aware.
If you could break that down as well, because I think people think sometimes it mata goes to the coroner and the coroner could find this person guilty of in the fence, but that's not the case at all, and that's a whole different set of rules.
Well, even if you think a person is guilty of criminal offense, you have no jurisdiction to decide that. That has to be decided elsewhere by that first of all, by the DPP and then by a criminal court. But to go back, what's the process. Well, first of all, I talked about teams. The coroner's seigners work in a system, a coronial system, and it's a multidisciplinary system. You were part of it. I was part of it. Forensic pathologists
are part of it. Family counselors, support people, administrators, etc. Are part of it. But the first thing that happens, of course, is that someone reports a death, and that's usually done by police officers. So police might be called to a hospital because someone's diet of injuries or something like that. The doctors will report to the police, the police will report to the coroner, and then there'll be
a medical examination. The coroners and the forensic pathologists will decide how to examine the person's body for evidence of the physiological or the medical cause of death. So that's the first stage. Of course. Families are notified and there's a whole process of informing them, which is a shattering event, as I was talking about a little while ago, really shattering event for people. So there's a process of talking
family members into this strange process. They may have heard about or may not have heard about, but most of them will never have experienced before. So how do you bring people into that. That's part of it. So we have a team. We had a team at the Corners Court family Support team and the forensic pathologists also had social workers who are dealing with families. Then we have
police involved. If the circumstances of a case look like they're unnatural, if the cause of death is looks like it's unnatural, then the police will do an investigation on behalf of the coroners. Sometimes that will look like a homicide investigation, and if it is a homicide, it'll be a very very thorough investigation. If it's an accident, there will also be a police investigation. There may be other experts called in aviation experts or all sorts of people.
If someone takes their own life, there will also be a police investigation, and that will be somewhat different from a homicide investigation because clearly, not only has a person whom other people love died taken their own life or apparently so, the family will be so psychologically shaken by this that they need real care. And that's difficult because the first responders will usually be young. Police office is
followed by detectives. The detectives are usually much more experienced and have seen terrible things usually, but there are lots of things going on in those scenarios, the shattered love relatives, but also what happens to the young police officers who are possibly seeing these sort of scenarios for the first time in their lives.
Yeah, you mentioned you mentioned the police and what we'll talk further about that later on, but the impact of police because we mentioned at the start the full range of emotions and the heavy emotional toll inquest take. But there's a lot of people that are affected by it. On the issue of suicides too, they're difficult ones. And I know from earlier because quite often the family don't want to accept that someone's taken their own life, so their minds.
Sticking over it.
You know, there must be something more to this, so you're dealing with that aspect of it as well.
But yeah, it's.
Confronting the whole range of things. And then accidents. The purpose of investigating an accident is to find out ways of preventing that accident from occurring. Again, that's something that the coronial process is involved in as well.
That's rightight, And although I think we do that quite well in in a lot of cases we only hold about it one hundred inquests a year in the South Bales, but there are eight thousand or roughly eight thousand deaths reported every year, so and around about forty percent of the reported deaths to unnatural causes. So we don't really investigate enough enough accidents, I think to learn all the
lessons that could be learned. Ideally, a cronial system should really thoroughly investigate all the accidents that occurred, that fatalities and try and put them into patterns or identify trends so that we can we can pull out life saving lessons. One thing that people don't often think about, and frankly I didn't think about when I was a coroner, but I have thought about since is the economic value of a human life. The Australian government puts an economic value
on an Australian life. It's called the value of a statistical life, and that in twenty twenty four it was estimated to be five point seven million dollars and a life year is valued by actuaries at around about two hundred and forty or two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
So investigating thoroughly the causes of accidents should be regarded as an investment in life saving because if we could save more lives, if we could prevent more accidents, then it would be obviously good for the families and the community in general if this human cost wasn't spent or incurred.
But there's also a value to the economy. So if you think about it, three thousand unnatural deaths a year, that's possibly fifteen billion dollars just putting it in dollar terms, which is a very crude an unsatisfactory way to put it, but it's really worth looking at. This is not just a lot of grief and a lot of sadness. It's an enormous cost to the society that we live.
In that we've lost the life these things like I'll pluck this as an example because it's fairly topical at the moment or current, like eese scooters, when there's a death on an new scooter, we see that these scooters on long foot paths, or the role of a coronario would imagine I'm talking hypothetically here, is if there's a series of accidents in quests, Okay, well how did this accident?
There might be recommendations like the helmet recommendation there is an obvious one or not the right on footpaths or certain things that might prevent deaths as well.
That's the role of a corona.
Yeah, and ideally most in quests would result in recommendations to public health and safety officials who would then work through the practicalities of their I mean coroners are not engineers or those sort of things. But a good in quest should bring in experts, experts, that's right. And then and very often families also have good ideas about how to because they've given a lot of thought to how their loved ones have died. They often have good ideas.
So in New South Wales, if we could increase the number of cases in which recommendations were produced, or if we could identify more patterns and trends of fatalities and serious injury, then we would have a more effective and more productive coronial system than we have at the moment.
Is there any accident you've seen that's really stuck in your mind?
Well, one of them is a terrible collision on Sydney Harbor which I spent some weeks inquiring into. Yeah, that was very very interesting.
Is that the one where for people were killed.
Four people were killed. There were passengers on board a pleasure cruiser which was proceeding from west towards towards Circular Key, and a river cat ferry came out of Circular Key. It was on its way back to the Balmain dockyard. Were at Birthed Yep and right under the harbor bridge on the on the southern side. The boat was run over by the by the ferry.
How many people were on the boat, I can't quite remember.
I think it was around about nine people.
Right, and four.
People were killed.
Yeah, what was it about that stuck in your mind, that that particular matter.
Well, there were a number of things. Really. My council assistant and I and my team went out on Sydney Harbor and you know, it took a view as it were, and we went up that the river with you know, in a ferry in a river cat. The father of a young dancer who was killed was representing his family. He didn't have a lawyer and he was on the he was on the ferry trying to talk to me.
And one of the one of the difficulties you have if you're a coroner, as you you can't really talk to the lawyers and the families in the course of either taking a view or taking evidence of that sort of thing. And I could see this poor man really trying to understand what the hell are these lawyers up to?
You know, why can't I talk to the coroner? And my council assistant was trying to say, look, the coroner is very, very interested in what you've got to say, but we've got certain rules about all of this sort of stuff.
So that was one thing just on that.
It's difficult, isn't it, Because I know I've seen at scenes and locations circumstances like that, and the coroner's there and you've got the families there or the people that have a vested interest in the situation. Obviously they want to speak to speak to the coroner, but you can't. You've got to have that independence that you're not speaking to them directly or on specifics of the evidence.
Yeah.
Actually, since I've finished as a coroner, I've given more thought to this, and I wonder whether sometimes coroners might not be better off at least having a meeting with the family with representatives or you know, someone to ensure that you don't make any false promises or cuddle up
if you like, become biased towards families. But I wonder sometimes whether we could do more to show the family is that we actually care about them as well as care about finding out what the answer to the question about how their loved ones died.
It carries a lot, doesn't it.
If the families know that you care, whether that's a police officer or a coroner, a legal person or anyone that gets caught up in these situations. If there's you're showing that you care, that can help the family so much.
Well, I think so, And sometimes not always, but sometimes after an inquest I would step down from the bench and I talk to the family. That's after I've given the decision. And I remember a particular case, I was doing an inquiry into an inquest into a murder suicide case. A father who had separated from his wife had taken his three children off in a car and put a I won't describe what happened, but anyway, he killed himself
and the three kids. The mother came to the court and this was I think three years after the murder suicide, and she was pregnant. She had repartnered since and after that, and she spoke about how much she missed her children, and so on and so forth, and I just admired this woman so much, her courage in not only putting up with what had happened. And as I said, I
don't think there's any such scene as closure. That she'd managed somehow to face the world and go forward, and now she'd repartnered, and now she was bringing new life into the world. And I just thought, respect, and I spoke to her and I said, how do you do this? And she said, look, I'm not going to let this guy get away with killing my kids. I'm not going to be crushed by it. I'm not going to allow him to destroy the life that I had. I'm going
to give new life. And I just thought, Wow, she's amazing. And very often I saw things like that happen in court.
I'm sure you took strength and the inspiration from the way some of the families conduct themselves. So that's what I saw, and I thought where I would often think, where do you get that strength, whether you get that strength to carry on? And also they can even see joy in life, like the ability to get through as you just described with the mother there, that she's going to live a life despite what's happened.
That's right.
And some people are obviously very angry and they never really get over their anger. But some people can be remarkably forgiving. People can make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes cause deaths by a mission or commission. So sometimes you know, for example, nurses or doctors miss clues. Let's suggest a child is very, very sick and needs some sort of virgent intervention, and by the time there is an intervention,
it's too late. I remember a case involving a little boy who died and he'd been seen by well by the time he died, he had been seen by six doctors. The last two doctors realized what was happening and tried to give emergent care, but the four previous doctors thought he was sick but had a flu or some sort of viral thing, but he'd get over it anyway. In the inquest, some of the medical and health practitioners, once they had finished their evidence, turned and faced the family
and said how sorry they were. But there was one doctor, young doctor, and I still feel quite sorry for her, but she couldn't bring herself to apologize. And I don't know why not, but I really feel that she lost an opportunity because the family were very willing to forgive all these other people who did apologize, and I just thought, gosh, if you turned and said you were sorry, that this had really affected you as well. And I'm sure she was affected, but maybe she got legal advised. You know,
I don't speak. Who knows. Maybe she just couldn't bring herself to say anything. But I just thought, if you could turn around and talk to them, I think it would make both of you, the family and this doctor so much happier than they were.
I think you've just encapsulated when they talk about the emotion that comes in the corner's court, just with that one story that's on the thing that lives are shattered, and it's about how people move forward. But I think you might be right, And yeah, saying sorry can often be the thing that helps people move forward.
Can I tell you another story ago?
Yeah?
Yeah, this one had a happier ending. Really a young woman, she was nineteen years old. She got very sick. She was working on a sharing team somewhere in the southwest of New South Wales and it looked like she had a flu. So her boyfriend, who was on the team said, go to bed. The sharing team boss was this marry guy. Little murry guy said, going like and she just got sicker and sicker though, and at some point in one of the breaks, her boyfriend went in and saw him
and thought, oh my god, she's really sick. So they called an ambulance, but it took nearly an hour for the ambulance to get there. It was way out somewhere. They got it to the hospital, but she was very,
very sick, and despite getting urgent attention, she died. We held an inquest because one of the difficulties was there wasn't a clear diagnosis of what was killing her, and we still don't really have an absolute diagnosis actually, but in any event, we held the inquest and her father, who was a Victorian farmer, very big man, six foot four or something, came in and we went through the evidence. The family was represented by a very good arrister from Victoria,
and I had a very good counsel assistant. You may know her, Peggy dwy a Silk or so. It's the Victorian. And one of the great things about this inquest I thought was that there was no bitterness, and at the end of the case, I gave my decision and my reasons, and I explained how you know, what had happened, and as best we could what the diagnosis we thought was most likely to be. Give my decision. I walk off
the bench. I'm sitting in my chambers, and Peggy comes out and says, Hugh, he come to the come to the door of the court. So I got up and I went to the door of the court and we pulled it out in a little bit and there was this enormous Victorian farmer with his arms around the little Marory shearing boss, both in tears, both embracing, and both so sad, but so happy to have this moment with one another. They were both they both loved this girl, the.
Mary.
Boss was so devastated by her death. I mean when he gave evidence, he was just weeping, pouring tears pouring out of him, very very emotional, as was her dad. And so there was this moment of cathasis. It doesn't always happened some you know, some people walk away still feeling angry or whatever. But this was one of those
moments where thought, today we did something good. And having spent a lot of time in criminal courts, I can say, I don't think on a lot of days I ever walked out of a criminal court thinking today we did something good.
Well, yeah, there's not not many people walk out happy out of the criminal court. That if the person's convicted, he or she's angry. If the person gets off, that's the police or the prosecution angry.
But the way you've.
Described that, I can picture it, and that is doing something good, like.
True.
And it was a moment of grace really, you know, there's there's very generous hearted men were embracing each other and owning the loss that they both felt.
Yeah, and you could imagine the types that you're describing, they could bottle it up. But the fact that they let the emotion go, and you see that quite often in the coroner's court. It is it is that emotional place. The breakdown of the adversarial system for the criminal courts and inquisitorial for the inquest. What's the difference in the way that evidence is allowed into those courts.
Well, the two things rely on different ways of thinking. So in a criminal trial, one party the prosecutions as a theory a hypothesis. The hypothesis is you Gary have murdered me Hugh, you deny that allegation, and either prosecutor have to try to prove my hypothesis. And I do that by producing proof which I hope will satisfy people in the jury beyond a resumal doubt that this is the only reasonable answer you could come up with. That's
deductive thinking. The other way of thinking is inductive thinking, which is to say, we look at all this evidence, which may be scattered and fragmented in different ways, and we try and come up with a theory. What theory may sense of all this stuff that we have collected. So that's theory building or inductive thinking. Now, of course
the adversarial side. There is an adversarial side to inquest and you've experienced that, and that's where people who have a different theory or have a particular theory challenge the range of theories that have been developed. So current might thinking, okay, well, the possibilities available for me are suicide, homicide, jumped off a cliff, fell off a cliff, accidentally, was kidding up
by by by martians and assaulted who knows what. So there might be a range of possible theories, and some of the people who have an interest in this it might be police, or it might be persons of interest as we call suspects might want to challenge some of these theories because they don't want the coroner to ultimately settle on a particular theory that blames them. So there is a degree of adversarialism in it in it or can be in an inquest. But it's all about really
this inductive thinking. What is the most satisfactory theory we can come up with that explains this death and the circumstances that surrounded it, And that means you have to look as carefully as you can at the surrounding circumstances, and that might mean that you take a wide look.
Does that allow for opinions to come in? Yes, because rare in the criminal court that you get off your opinion, but in the coroner's court, quite often opinions the coroner takes that account.
Opinions can be very important and they can be quite persuasive. And also hearsay evidence. So here's some heresay evidence. Obviously can get into a criminal trial, but only under very limited circumstances because there are questions about the reliability of hearsay and of opinions. Juries have to come up with
their own opinion about whether someone's guilty or not. That's the idea about opinion evidence unless it relates to some sort of area of X that's beyond common knowledge, etc. But coroners are running an inquiry, not a trial, and that's the fundamental difference. And that's what I'm saying inductive thinking, that's I'm thinking about, what's the question, How do I answer the question? What's the theory I can come up with that answer answers the question question is how did
this person die? How did this death come about? What explains it? But if we go to a trial, the prosecution thinks it knows the answer to that, then it's got to persuade a jury to agree with that answer.
I'm just reflecting back on my first experience at an inquest, and I think it was even in my uniform days, where a young child, the mother was in the bathroom and the hair dry fell into the bath. The two kids in the bath just toddlers, and one died and one survived from that. And I remember, and this was probably the first sort of situation I've been to like that where a brief had to be put together for
the coroner, So we put together a coronial brief. A lot of questions were asked by what sort of system did they have in the fuse box with the electrical work, wasn't the safety Why didn't the circuit break a trip at the time, and think like that long time ago. But I think some recommendations came on the back of that. That's the type of incident that would be bought before the coroner.
Yeah, definitely, And it's the very kind of incident that should be brought before the coroner because there's obviously if you explore that scenario thoroughly enough, there are there's real potential for saving life in future.
And warning's about electrical appliances near the bath and where powerpoints are located near the bath.
All of that, and yeah, well I would imagine a good coroner came up with a number of recommendations, and no doubt the police, which might have been you Gary, contributed to that thinking process.
It was I remember it because it was such a tragic, tragic accident, and that's what it was.
It was an accident.
But whether the accident could have been safeguarded against by you know, putting things in place or just letting people be more aware of the situation. Another one, and I'm just reflecting on all the different experiences I've had in a coroner's court. The bower of all matter, you're familiar with it, and people that have listened to the podcast would be familiar with it. The murder of Evelyn green Up, Colin Walker, and Clinton Speedy in nineteen ninety and ninety one.
Over a five month period, a person had been a charge with one of the murders, went to court and the person was acquitted. I became involved in a reinvestigation and we just saw that we reinvestigated. We thought we had enough information for the matter to go back before the courts for the other two because the double jeopardy legislation wasn't in on the other two matters that a person hadn't been charged with, but the DPP knocked it back.
We then went to an inquest and had an inquest where it was the first time witnesses in regards to all three matters had provided any form of evidence in a court environment because the person that was charged with that crime was only dealt with the facts relating to the murder of Clinton Speedy. We've gone to the inquest. The inquest ran over a number of weeks. Everyone gave evidence and there was opportunities for people to be cross examined.
On the back of that, I think it was John Abernathy, was a coroner at the time, made a recommendation to the DPP that he has reasonable cause that the known persons involved in the matter and that all three matters should be looked together. On the back of that, the DPP then a little bit down the track, but the weight that was carried from the inquest and John Abernathy's recommendations decided to exo fishao, indict diet the person. I raise that as an example because that's where I see
the coronial court working in an investigation. In that gave the witnesses the opportunity to give evidence in a court room environment, and then an assessment could have been was made on the weight that could be placed on the evidence. Is that how you see a coroner's court can be used. Yeah.
And in fact, in New South Wales, if a person has died and homicide is the suspected cause of that and death and inquest is mandatory and so yeah, I was thinking about this the other day. I'm quite sure how many homicide inquests I did. It's probably I would say probably twenty CYCA. In some cases I did refer cases to the DPP. In other cases we didn't get far enough. And in fact, the very last case I
did as a coroner was in Newcastle. It was a double murder and we we had a person of interest who gave evidence, but there simply wasn't enough evidence in my opinion, the opinion of my counsel assisting or the police investigators to refer to the DPP. An interesting, very interesting case. Yeah, And you know, you never know. Sometimes people say things or do things which pushes a case where the DPP has doubts that the evidence is sufficient
over the line. And so a couple of a couple of times I referred cases to the DPP after they had initially decided there wasn't enough evidence. And sometimes they put people on trial, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they take it. You know, once they have a look at all the evidence, they think, ye, that will work or not work.
And I think that's what perhaps the public caren't fully informed on that when the coroner maker makes a recommendation, it's still that's not the end of the story. That doesn't mean the person's going to trial. The DPP's got to assess it from a criminal point of view, whether there's sufficient evidence to warrant charges.
Against a person.
I suppose I lost my faith and I'm sorry to say this when you're seeing here as a coroner, very early in my career, but got it back. Naive young detective working on a case. It was a brutal case. A person had been shot with a shotgun and dumped in the boot of his car, and his car was abandoned. Locals called the police out. It was a horrendous, horrendous scene. It was during the heat wave and the deceased body was in the back of the boot for five days.
I remember the case well, I remember the post mortem. It was a horrendous situation. There was what I considered evidence a person person of interest. We won't mention the names or the case. Young detective thinking, this is frustrating. We know this person has done it, and it was sort of suggested, let's take the matter to the coroner and maybe further evidence will be forthcoming. What and I knew this was a possibility, but it shocked me when I saw it actually work. In the process, the person
of interest got in the witness box. We had presented the brief to the coroner. I was excited as a naive young detective, thinking, Okay, well this is We're going to watch this person get carved up. He got in the witness box and he was said, I declined to answer any questions on the ground I might incriminate myself. He got thanked by the coroner and left the court, and it was sort of my expectations were high, the family's expectations were. My expectations were high because I was
naive as the workings of the court. But I thought there I just lost a little bit of faith in that that write the silence. I fully understand the concept of the silence, but a coronial inquest is to find out what's happened to a person, and this person clearly had relevant information about about how this person died, but was allowed to just say I'm not going to say anything.
What's your thoughts on that?
I have mixed feelings about that from a purely coronial point of view, Like everybody else, I would like to hear the story from the person who probably knows most about it. On the other hand, if there is a strong case against a known person, I'd be quite reluctant to force them to give evidence. The reason being that if you force them to give evidence, they object, and then you say no, no, no, you're going to give evidence.
They have to give evidence, and then they talk, but whatever they say can be used, and it can't be used in any way at all. So you can't be used directly against them or indirectly against them, which is even worse. So if you force someone to speak, my view was that you run the real risk of jeopardizing what may be a strong case at trial, because they'll be able to say, oh, well, the cops went and got this evidence.
It's not just the evidence that provided can't be used. It's a flow on, that's right.
All the evidence that is obtained indirectly as a result of them speaking is inadmissible.
Well, I'm sure you are for me with the Matthew Levison cases and that was an interesting I found that an interesting case for a whole range of reasons. But basically, and we've had Mark and Faye on the podcast, so people have probably heard talk about the situation. Matthew disappeared. He'd been out Saturday night at Oxford Street in Sydney with his partner and disappeared. The partner was eventually circumstances
around the disappearance was a bit strange. They've waken up and that Matthew's gone and the partner got on with his life. And then Mark and fayr initi when they were contacted by Matthew's employer he hadn't turned up for work. They went to the police and reported that Matthew missing. There was an investigation and I can say the name that he hasn't been convicted of the murder, but it's all public record. Michael Atkins, he's partner at the time,
was charged with murder. A murder trial was conducted, and we should note that Michael Atkins was acquitted of murder and manslaughter in two thousand and nine. So Mark and Fayer left in and I'm sure you'd understand the situation. Left in this horrible situation where they've okay, they've put their faith in the justice system, it's gone the court
and then what have we got. Well, we've got no answers because we've been told that this person wasn't responsible for son's son's murder by the court during the trial I became involved in it. They spoke to me and we looked at okay, we could go to a cranial inquest because and I think the representations they made to the coroner were we put our faith in the justice system as in the court system. We still don't have answers for our son. Can we have a corannial inquest?
And on the back of that, there was a decision that an inquest would be held. There was a lot of layers to it, but it got to the point where I was satisfied from a homicide to take this point of view that we'd taken the investigation as far as we possibly could. There was not going to We'd gathered all the evidence of available evidence, so there wasn't an opportunity because double jeopardy legislation had come in by
that stage. There wasn't going to be an opportunity to reach uge because we hadn't gathered fresh and compelling evidence. So then a bit of a conundrum. And you know, Mark and Fay would on weekends go look for Matt's body. They were desperate to get Matt's body back. And I still remember having the conversation with them about what do
you hope to achieve from the inquest? And I think it was Elaine Truscott was the coroner and very very considerate of everyone's feelings and the appropriateness of the whole way the matter has been run. And the decision was made to give Michael Atkins a Section sixty one certificate so that he could and when the listeners hear this,
they think this is ridiculous. But he could have got in the witness box and said, yes, I murdered Matthew Levison and this is how I did it, and that we couldn't use that evidence.
But that's the.
Deal that we made a lot of processes that we had to go through to do that, and it was contested at court and Michael Atkins's defense were doing a great job in protecting them. Eventually a decision was made that he could give evidence with a section sixty one certificate. He purjured himself whilst giving evidence in the witness box for a week trying to answer questions and dodge around, and then he was given the indemnity from the Attorney General if he took us to Matthew Levison's body, which
he did. That's using an inquest in a way that I don't think those said the circumstances would present themselves very often. I know there was some sort of pushback on people thinking, oh, well, are we really usurping the person's right to silence? To me, I felt that it was the right thing to do. I think Mark and Fay have got their son's remains back. No one's been charged with the murder. I'm just interested in to getting your thoughts because I know it caused some different opinions.
I won't say controversy. Everyone wanted to see it resolved in some way. What's your feelings on that?
Yeah, well, and I've talked to various people about this. Some people I know and respect, some lawyers I know and respect very much don't like it at all, for the very reasons you've just explained that it seems to run against the ethos of our criminal justice system. On the other hand, I couldn't help feeling for the Leveson family to be honest, to get their son's body back, to be able to bury him, to at least get some idea of what actually happened to him. I think
was worth the cost. In that particular case. There's are very rare circumstances, and I don't think the principle that people are concerned about of protecting people's right to silence is in any way undermined, and in fact, in some ways it's strengthened, I suppose, because it's shown that if you if you force someone to speak against the against their own interests, to tell the truth, in other words,
then there is a price to pay for that. And you know, when you when you go back and think about the right to silence, it goes back to the days when if you were found guilty of an offense, you were hung for it. So obviously there had to be some protection against people being hung on the evidence that came out of their own mouths. You know, that's
torturing people, really, one way or the other. So I fully support the right to silence, and you know, would always do that, but I think in this particular case, and I really respect Elane, trust God as well as a human being, as well as as well as a coroner, I think she made the right decision.
Yeah, it was a difficult one.
I suppose even though a precedent has been set like that, it hasn't opened the floodgates because it was such a rare combination of circumstances requiely and it's one that yeah, I won't say sleepless nights, but there was a lot of thought that went into that, and there was a lot of counterviews and different things. But the safeguards were put in two and his defense team pushed it as hard as they could on defending his right to avoid
giving evidence in those circumstances. But look, I feel satisfied by it. I think the system worked. It was a different way of approaching the system, but the system worked in that regards.
And you'd know from your general career as a police officer too that sometimes for the law to work, you have to give people who have done bad things and indemnine tea for the greater good. Yeah, it's a utilitarian concept, I know. But you know, when I was at the come of DVP, we're quite often we did indemnify people who would give up major drug importers and so forth. So you know that was that was the price you paid for the evidence.
It's a necessary tool, and I break when there's a different narrative or different discussions on what should be done. And with the leves and matter I said, okay, well the option is we don't do that, but we're not going to find out where Matt's bodies, So.
What are we risking here?
Like it's we ever just just pack up our tools and go home.
But you're right anyway, Gary, that the floodgates have not opened.
Yeah, well I saw.
I saw that and many a debate and discussion in parliament with the double jeopardy legislation when that came in, and that was on the back of the bearable thing. People we know about it. In summary, if you'd been acquitted of a crime before the double jeopardy legislation came in, you couldn't be retried. So again the analogy at the extreme, you could be acquitted of murder, walk out on the steps of court and say I did it, I got a way of it, and we couldn't charge that person.
The double jeopardy legislation came in, and there was a lot of pushback about that. I was involved from the Bowable point of view, using it sort of as a test case and the world the sky was.
Going to fall.
The naysayers that didn't want the want this legislation come in. If this comes in, it's going to turn our legal justice system upside down. I think to this day the legislation still hasn't been acted upon, but it's in there as a safeguard if circumstances happened in bearable so.
And the you would hope would be very careful in any event. Yeah, you know, you wouldn't want people being dragged up from years and years and years ago with some sort of weak evidence. You're right, it has to be very compelling. Is compelling, it's a very high state.
It's a high high standard.
And look, I understood there was an argument there that it would allow and it was fresh and compelling evidence, and it's got to be in the interest of justice, and it had to be an offense that carries a minimum of twenty years. There was a lot of things that went into it, but I understood. One of the arguments I understood was it would allow police or investigators to do a half hearted job the first time, and if they lost the trial, I will do it properly
this time. And I could understand that concept that that sloppiness, but it clearly hasn't come into play. But yeah, they're interesting thoughts on the way justice can be approached.
When we get back.
We might take a break now, but when we get back, I want to talk about some of the cases that you've overseen, some very seen cases and your reflections on those cases and something that you're very passionate about, and full credit to you.
I support what you're.
Trying to do in how we could make the crannial process or the Coroni's court a better place, because I know you've been doing a lot of work on that since you've left.
Yeah, I have Okay, great
Okay, we'll be back soon.