From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday, November five. The space industry and defense experts are reeling from the Albanese government's decision to acts Australia's biggest ever space project, a seven billion dollar satellite system. The Australian has all the latest analysis and reporting by our correspondents on the ground in the United States as millions of Americans head to the polls to vote for their next president. Check it out right now at the
Australian dot com dot au. What if anything, is going on with the New South Wales Police's investigation into missing woman Bromwin Winfield. Today National Chief Correspondent Headley Thomas joins us to explore why Bromwin's family is deeply concerned.
Joe Putlic and people are quite better at finding things out and frame more diligent on what they are so frustrated.
This is Andy Reid, whose sister Bromwin Winfield vanished from her Lenox Head home more than thirty years ago. He's venting his frustrations to the Australian's National Chief correspondent, Headley Thomas about the conduct of New South Wales police.
I just can't believe that they can be so slow on this matter. We've got something that's a major podcast that's breaking down all sorts of barriers and coming up with all sorts of information. I don't believe that there is anyone that is directly involved with Broman's case that is up to date.
Broman's disappearance and suspected murder is the subject of the Australian's chart top being investigative podcast series Bromwin. Over two seasons, the podcast has surfaced new eyewitnesses, fresh documents, and it's even revealed a secret daughter allegedly fathered by Bromman's husband John when he was a teenager. But Andy Reid says he fears the cops aren't tuned in.
When I first disclosed about Red, obtained the historical flight records and all the rest of it. Where knocking down doors, breaking barriers, coming up with you info. He was taken aback by it. He wasn't aware of any of them.
Our reporter Alexei Dimitriadi hit up Commissioner Karen Webb and homicide Commander Danny Dougherty at a press conference in recent days.
Grit Swans intrusive for that matter, that's an investigation as current investigation and it's well documented. There's a podcast in Israel and following that story, but in terms of the UNSOLF term and have that investigation as current when that's ongoing.
SEK.
In twenty eighteen, Hedley's investigative journalism on another cold case turned into a global juggernaut, The Teacher's Pet. That was a podcast investigation into the disappearance of Sydney woman Lynnette Simms. Her husband, Chris Dawson, had moved the family's teenage babysitter into the house immediately after Lynn went missing in nineteen eighty two, and he subsequently married the younger woman. Police had failed to properly investigate Lynn's disappearance as a potential homicide.
Hedley's work in The Teacher's Pet reignited the New South Wales Police investigation, and then Commissioner Mick Fuller became actively involved in ensuring detectives took the matter seriously. In December twenty eighteen, Chris Dawson was arrested. Here's Mick Fuller at a police press conference.
Can I thank the public and the media for the partnership in solving this matter. Whilst New South Wales Police since twenty fifteen has worked ty I recognize that this is an important and ongoing relationship, not just to solving this crime, but many many other crimes.
In twenty twenty two, Chris Dawson was convicted of Lin's murder and sentenced to twenty four years in jail.
In twenty eighteen, Claire, you had a police commissioner, Mick Fuller, get on the front foot and take ownership for the appalling failure of police investigations in the early years in relation to Lynn's disappearance.
Her husband had murdered her and he'd got away with.
It for thirty six years to twenty eighteen, and Mick Fuller really stepped up and began to own it in the public arena and talk about what the police were trying to do to solve it.
Clearly, police had taken a view very early in the piece that it was a missing person's case. Then there were lots of other people who made an assumption, a pretty poor one, that Lynn had made a decision to leave the family home when clearly, again even if you haven't listened to the podcast and you had to look at both the coroner's recommendations or their reports, is that there is much much more to this case.
He wasn't disclosing any operational details, nor should he have. That would have been completely inappropriate. But what he did give was public confidence and confidence to Lynn's family that police were doing their best, they were really trying, and they were working out what angles might yet be pursued.
Do I wish I could take back time, and do I wish that the police at the time had assessed it differently? And do I wish that the people out there who knew more came forward. There's a whole range of things that I'm sorry for, And at the end of the day, it's our job to protect the community and we can't stop every crime from happening, but when they do, it's our responsibility to ethically and diligently investigate them and get to the bottom of the truth.
Mickfuler did that with a number of interviews not with me, but with Sydney radio stations and other media outlets. It was a display of leadership and I'd wager that it would also give confidence to people who were thinking about coming forward as potential witnesses that they would be taken seriously. Now you contrast that with what's happened in Bromlin's case. There has been complete silence from the Commissioner, Karen Webb.
It's almost as if she's hiding from it. She doesn't want to talk about it, and when asked at a media conference last week, she couldn't clear the microphone quick enough. So when our colleague started asking a few general questions about it, the head of homicide, Dandy Doherty, stepped up, and it seemed to Andy and others listening as if he was just throwing a completely wet blanket over.
The whole thing.
If you're a witness yet to come forward, watching and listening to that before or following the Bromin podcast series, you'd have to assume that police seemed really disinterested.
Internally.
I suspect senior police are saying to themselves, no, that's okay, this is a live investigation. We're not going to give a running commentary. But that really conflates the issue. People aren't looking for a running commentary. They just want to see some evidence that the police really are making a proper effort. And sadly for Andy Reid, for Bromman's friends. For other people who are following this closely, they haven't seen evidence of that.
Now.
It may be the case that the police are pulling out all stops. It may well be the case that they are doing so much work behind the scenes, after again completely failing Bromwin Winfield in the early years, that we will be surprised at some point when we see it, and that they just want to, for operational reasons, say as little as possible. But I don't think it makes logical sense to lose the public confidence and lose the confidence of the family of the victim of a suspected murder.
Hellly, I've heard senior police saying over the years, very frankly, that the conviction of Chris Dawson would not have happened without the teacher's pet. Do you think there are remnants of a bit of a cultural cringe or a bit of humiliation in the police that they were shown up in that instance and they don't really want this to be true. They don't really want it to be the case that there is more to be done here, that a journalist is doing it.
It's possible.
I think there's also a high degree of caution because these cases can inevitably end up before a judge, and in the Teacher's Pet case, parts of my work were criticized by a senior judge and parts of the police response with the Teacher's Pet podcast were also criticized by a judge.
So there may be a bit of an over.
Correction by New South Wales Police currently as a result of that. But I think that they've just gone too far. They've gone from being really cooperative and in a very constructive way in the Teacher's Pet and owning the issue in the public arena to looking like they're trying to curl up and be the smallest possible target, almost to the point of appearing to be disinterested in Brommin's case.
And if you're the family of a woman who has been missing thirty one years, a woman who was separating from her husband when she suddenly disappeared, from their two daughters, their home, all of her possessions, family and friends, you're looking at these two cases and saying, well, is Bromwin's life to the New South Wales Police worth less than Lin's.
Here's Damien Lohn, the detective who did the first thorough investigation of Lynn's case.
Look, I listened to the pot Broman's podcast and it just takes me back to the Teacher's Pet podcast where all the evidence is now being put out there on display. Everyone can listen to it and read about it in the Australian. A lot of people won't speak to police. We'll speak to a journal and I'm okay with that.
Coming up, John Winfield's claim to have discovered proof of life after Broman's disappearance in episode seventeen of Bromwin, which is live now for the Australian subscribers at Bromwan podcast dot com, there's an intriguing step back into the world of nineteen ninety three. It's about a Medicare check which John Winfield says he found in the family home after Bromwyn had disappeared. Here's how John Winfield described it in his only formal police interview with Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor
in nineteen ninety eight, five years after Bromwin vanished. John and Glenn Taylor's words are being read by voice actors.
There was a medicare check on the front, not the front the kitchen bench, on the island bench right a Medicare check sitting there signed and it was a.
Check signed by who her, And you believe that check was definitely not at the house a time when you left.
Definitely not. I know I wasn't there when I left. No way.
This check exists today, and it's a key piece of evidence because John uses it to claim proof of life of Bromwin some seven weeks after she's suddenly disappeared on a Sunday night in May nineteen ninety three. And John's version is that after he has returned from Sydney, where he took the two daughters, Lauren and Crystal for the school holidays in July, he goes back to the house and to his amazement, he discovers in his mind that Bromwin has come back during their absence, and she's taken
a pair of John's jeans. She's taken some clothes of her own that John had put into roof storage, so Bromin would have had to go up a ladder and climb through a manhole to get those. But most importantly, John says, Bromwan has come back and left behind this piece of paper, the old fashioned check.
It was for forty dollars and eighty cents.
It stated May one, nineteen ninety three, that's fifteen days before Bromin disappeared, and it's a reserve bank check that's made out to the local GP. Dr Hughes. He had seen Bromwan in the month of April. John told Bromwan's family and friends, neighbors.
She's come back.
She's come back, and she's taken some clothing, and she's left behind this check which she has signed. It's got her signature on it, Bromwyn Winfield. One of the problems with John's story, and it's why when Andy Reid first heard from John about this so called return by bromwin and he immediately thought, for sure, now John has done something to her, is that Bromin used to work in a bank, she had experience with manicare checks, and her signature appears in the area reserved for the paye. The
paye is doctor Hughes. It was not a check for Bromwyn to sign. So that's the first problem. The second problem is why does a woman who was so devoted to her two girls, who owned half of a house in Lennox Head return and out of the blue during the absence of John in Sydney to take a pair of his genes, some of her clothes and leave a check, but not contact anyone, and not be seen by any of the neighbors, and never have any other contact with
members of her family, her loved ones, her daughters. I've asked a handwriting examiner to look at the signature on that check that purports to be Bronwin's and compare it with Bromwin's actual signatures from documents like a wedding certificate, and they appeared to the lay person to be chalk and cheese. They also appeared to expert handwriting examiners to
be suspicious. Bromin's brother, Andy has told me that the then Inspector George Radmore, who was leading a cold case review team for the New South Wales homicide Squad in twenty ten, sent the check, as well as some other documents bearing Bromwin's real signature, to New Scotland Yard for expert handwriting analysis, and Andy's very strong understanding is that that analysis raised big red flags about the so called authenticity of Bromwin's signature.
Kelly Thomas is The Australian's National Chief correspondent and the creator of the Bromwyn Podcast Episode seventeen, which examines the mystery Medicare check in detail, is live now for the Australian subscribers. Listen on our app or at Bromwyn podcast dot com