Malicious Prosecution | 7

Now, the turial case was perplexing because there wasn't a cleave suspect.

This is hands rap.

There was an initial phase searching for the lost child.

The detective who was in charge of the investigation into William Toole's disappearance right from the beginning.

And that went on for a couple of weeks and that bore no fruit at all. So clearly there was something more to the situation than a little boy lost in the bush.

But Hans doesn't want to talk to me for this podcast.

He clearly didn't wander off by himself.

So this interview you're listening to was conducted by a colleague of mine, Caroline Overington, a few years ago now, for her own reporting on William's disappearance.

What is it that prompts that feeling there's something more to this? It was the ane logical explanation. He didn't wander off. We know he didn't wander off, so what else could there be?

What was your feeling?

Well, I think that someone grabbed him off the street, bundled him into a car, and he just disappeared, which is really really sad.

Hans has got good reason for thinking William was abducted for one thing, he's a veteran policeman.

Look I joined in February of nineteen seventy four, so it's been a career of forty one years.

Forty one years, first in uniform and then as an investigator.

I went to plane clothes in the late seventies ninety seventy nine and I went to the CIBA in nineteen eighty two.

CID means Hans was a detective and he spent the decades since carving out a reputation as a tough, hard working operator working on the biggest crimes.

I think it was about nineteen ninety two I went to the homicide squad, so effectively for the last thirty years, I've investigated bank robbers and murderers.

Meaning Hans knows what he's talking about, and I don't read anything into the fact that he doesn't want to talk to me when I call him. It's ten years since William Tyrrel was reported missing, and almost ten years since Hans himself retired from the New South Wales Police. When he was put in charge of the investigation into William's disappearance, Hans was only a few months off retirement, so he explains he's been out of the loop for

Murderers don't murder strangers. It's a rear event.

Murderers don't typically murder strangers. He says.

People always kill someone they know, whether that's a loving relationship or a domestic relationship, or a business relationship that's gone bad. Something there's something to tie the offender to the victim.

The detective's job is usually finding out that thing tying offender to victim. H except William's case was different.

That's not your belief.

No, absolutely, this has got nothing to do with the chur case at all. Your feeling was always that it was the stranger. Absolutely, there was a stranger involved. I don't think any member of the family involved at all.

No, So Hans is certain it was a stranger who took William and his family were not involved at all. Early decisions are critical in long police investigations. Even though Hans worked on William's case for only a few months, he still had a massive impact on the years that followed.

You retired, didn't you after four months on that case?

So you weren't able to see it through.

Do you think if you had.

Would we have a result? That's impossible for me to say. I don't know, but I know when I left it, I think it was in good hands.

Hans says he's happy with the way he left the William Tyrell investigation.

Look, I don't dwell on the ones that got away, but look, I'm happy with what I've achieved, and that's pretty good. And now this is a different stage of my life.

But not everyone agrees the investigation was in a good place when Hans left it. You're about to hear from the detective who took it over, the homicide squad commander who oversaw this transition, and the man at the very center of the police investigation who describes it as a poisoned chalice. I'm Dan box and from news dot com dot Au. This is Witness William Tyrell Episode seven, Malicious Prosecution.

Hello, Justing, wonder is rue.

Good question?

Um coffee?

Bill Spedding describes himself as not the kind of man to draw attention to himself. He hopes people see him as a pretty straightforward guy, an ordinary grandfather. At home, he and his wife Margaret drive an ordinary maroon colored Ford Fairline which they call Myrtle. But really nothing about the Spedding's life has been ordinary over the past ten years.

Was it going well?

Yeah?

Oh, well it was good at the time. Is business was doing well, successful in the community. The kids are in the forty teams in their weekend sport. We had soccorn Saturdays in IFL on Sundays and middle marvelous group of parents and the other children in the teams.

While they had good friends where they were living. The Spedding's family history is complicated. Bill and Margaret have each been married before with kids from previous relationships, and there had been falling out within their families, some more bitter than others. Yes, what were you looking forward to then?

Well, just retiring down that area.

That area was the mid north coast of New South Wales. The Speddings lived in Bonnie Hills, a village about twenty minutes drive from where William was reported missing. Bill worked as a white goods repairman, installing air conditioners fixing fridges. Three days before William's disappearance, he was called to look at the washing machine in a house on a dead end road called Bennerun Drive.

And I just called in there and had to go back later on to finish the job off. Our first knowledge of the disappearance was by the news newscast that evening of the six o'clock news, and there didn't mean anything to us other than the fact that a child had disappeared in the local community. And the name didn't mean anything to me because the name of Dural was not my customer's name. So nothing fill into place, nothing twigged.

Bill would later write a book about what happened, although it's never been published. I've got a copy. The book says Bill had ordered the parts to fix the washing machine and was waiting for them to be delivered when he got a call from the house on the morning William was reported missing. Bill didn't pick up. When he saw the missed call, he called back, no answer. But there were other phone calls between Bill and the house both that day and later.

And I was quite surprised and be told mind the police, because they rang me and said that I was not to mention or disclose that William had disappeared from the house. And then I said, well, how was I supposed to know that when it wasn't there when I was there.

Four months later, January twenty fifteen, Bill and Margaret were sitting on their back verandah when the police arrived search his house.

The search all of our house. Wasn't that surprise at all, No surprise, because so I knew that they were doing searches and around the area, and when they turned up, we weren't on duely surprise. I thought, well, are fair enough the investigating their disappearance and come on in, guys, you know, do your thing and we we'll get out of your way.

But the media found out about it.

Police arrived at their Bonnie Hills home at seven point thirty on Tuesday morning. They spent forty eight hours excavating the backyard and emptying a sceptic tam.

Morning Sean, what's the latest on that. We have fresh pictures that are coming to you now as we go to wear that this is the latest development. It's believed this semi rural property is linked to another property that was rated yesterday here in Laurenton where we are a flat where items were taken there.

They took computers out, they took a mattress out, and they took a ton of stuff out.

Actually they filled the back of our yard waggon up.

Detectives have sent away three cars, mobile phones, a mattress and computer equipment for forensic testing.

Those raids and the media reporting would change everything in Bell's life.

I didn't realize that things were so intense except Tom when during the first record or police interview and the question he was relentless.

I believe you went to that address better and drive Kendall on the twelfth of September twenty fourteen.

I never went near there.

This is a recording of Bill Spatting's police interview.

You were there to fix that washing machine. Perhaps you didn't make it to the house because as we know, William Tyrrell was wandering around the front yard of his grandmother's house on his own he had no supervision bony parent at that time for a few minutes.

We know that.

Okay, we believe you were there.

I wasn't there. And the police are really getting upset with me because they were asking questions which I had no knowledge of the content, and asking what happened to certain phone calls? And I said not that. I've got no idea.

I'm telling you on your official records, you've got a phone call at nine o three am, but it isn't here.

Is anything you can tell me about that?

No, what this indicates to us, So that specific phone call you received, you deleted from that.

Phone You can't delete it.

You deleted that number. You can deleted that incoming call so that when police extracted your phone they wouldn't find it in the extraction of the phone. Why is that phone call not in your incoming calls on the twelfth of September twenty fourteen at nine oh three am, I don't know. Did you delete that phone call.

Now, as far as you can't delete.

Did you delete that phone call from your telephone number now, from your mobile telephone now to show the police that that phone call did not occur for whatever reason?

I don't know I didn't delete anything.

In his book. Bill says that was the call about fixing the washing machine at the house where William was staying. He says it didn't show up in his phone records because he used the automated answer phone service. Bill pressed one oh one to listen to the message, then pressed twenty two to redial the number. So it wasn't like a normal phone call. But it went beyond asking you certain questions. They said to you, we believe that you may have grabbed William.

We believe that you may have grabbed William from that front address, from the front yard of that address, may have left the area. Then in one knowing, I'm sorry, I wasn't they did you take William?

Til No. I just sat there and thought, what are you talking about? I wasn't there.

Were you frightened?

Oh? I was bewildered, very much bewildered in the questioning.

And if Bill says he was bewildered by the questions asked in the recorded police interview. What the detectives asked him when they turned off the tape must have been even more confusing. There was one point when I think the police were driving you from your house to the police station on that day. In the car, they asked you if you knew any pedophiles, yes, and you said, you know, I don't know the names there people you

Then? I was very naive. I was totally overwhelmed, very nive about please question me. And I hadn't done anything to feel guilty about, and so I'm thinking, well, well, they're just asking normal questions.

After you left the police station that day you interviewed for six hours, Yes, and you left the police station. And as you left, you've given evidence saying that one of the detectives shouted at you, we know you did it, We're going to get you. I'm going to arrest you. Yeah, this one detective did. And that was a about William Tyrell. Right, Okay,

Well, by this stage, the disappearance of William Terrel had saturated the press.

This is Bill Spedding's lawyer Peter O'Brien speaking in a separate interview.

It had permeated well into the community psyche. It worried appearance, It worried anyone in our community who's right minded and thinking of that, the welfare of this poor child who gone missing in such mysterious circumstances. And the police response

That anonymous tip was made within days of William Tyrrell being reported missing. According to police records, the cops received at least one call claiming Bill has a history of alleged involvement in some really awful offenses. I'm not going to say what those alleged offenses are, because here's the thing about them, they'd already been thrown out in court decades early. When a judge said the person making these

Time, Well, incalculable amount of damage. But what it seems to have done in this case is put him at the center, and entirely by coincidence, for the fact that he was a washing machineer Peerman going about his ordinary daily work that has brought him to the center of the disappearance of a child. That's raised the entirety of a stratus concerns.

That, however, isn't even the worst of it, to my mind. The worst thing is that the police raids on Bill's house and business, which put his face on the TV and the front page of the papers, were launched before the cops properly checked Bill's alibi for the morning William was reported missing, meaning no one confirmed if Bill actually was where he said he was in this statement he gave detectives.

On Friday, the twll Fortember two thousand and fourty I'll dropped the boys to the bus stop and went back home.

That was in the early morning before school. The last known photograph of William Tyrell was taken at nine thirty seven am at nine forty four. Bill's bank records show he bought coffees to him and Margaret at a cafe in Lorryton, a town a short drive from where William was staying.

Hunger and I went to the school, assuming at Laura and Published School. This would have been about ten am and finished at about twelve thirty PM. I spoke with some of the parents that were there and also spoke to the precibol and one of their teachers.

After the school assembly, Bill says he went to his offic.

Which is located a ball Street Lord So I finished up of the office cycle pick up the kids from school at three thirty. I had no dealings with the female foster care as mother family on that day. In fact, I had no contact with them from the night of the fifteenth September twenty fourteen.

If Bill's alibi checked out, it was physically pretty much impossible for him to be involved in what happened to William.

They also had my written diary which they had photographed and photo cobbied, and in it was quite I had appointments written, and I had appointments which were moved around so that I could attend the assembly on the twelfth of September.

Did you trust the police at that point.

I did at first because a little boy went missing and I knew they had to look for.

This little fellow.

Do you trust them now? No, say that with a smile. I'm guessing you weren't always smiling about it. Do you trust them?

Trust them? I had not one way or the other. I was just confusers to the what they're up to.

Bill wasn't the only person wondering what the police were up to at this point. It's worth saying these decisions who to target and how in major cases don't get decided by any one detective. They reported up and signed off by senior police commanders. But the detective running the investigation into William's disappearance was hands rup Well.

I think that someone grabbed him off the straight, bundled him into a car and he just disappeared.

And at least one person inside the police force was starting to question what Hans was doing. That person was another detective. Introduce yourself. Tell me who you are.

Gary Jubland, retired detective now working in the media.

But who were you before you retired?

I was a police officer for thirty four years, specializing as a homicide detective.

That was my passion.

That was my drive.

At the time, Hans is planning the raid on Bill Spedding. He's only a few weeks off retirement. Gary is due to take the case over. When he hears about the planned raid, Gary tries to stop it.

I had concerns before I took it over because the whole focus of the investigation that that stage was on Bill Spending. They were going to execute the search warrant on his place, and once the search warrants executed that he would know that we were looking at him. I spoke to senior police and said, could we put a hold on that and stop that occurring? And I suppose I'm over stepping the mark to a degree because I wasn't in charge of the job.

At that time.

I was putting a place firmly, put him a place and told, don't you worry about it now. When you take it over, you can then run it the way you want to run it.

So you tried to stop the search warrant being executed? Yes, why?

Because I didn't believe all the stuff that needed to be done. I wanted to approach it a little bit differently, not so overtly. I wanted to approach it more covertly. Once you've executed the search warrant, you put your hand up and said, basically, we think you're the suspect for it. I didn't want it to go down that path.

Gary called up his boss, the homicide squad commander.

I said, can we find Mick Willing who was at home?

And then your leave.

He was a boss and I explained it to him, and I was basically told words to the effect of tubes, just wait till you take it over.

Let Hands retire in peace.

And so I just stepped aside and they did the did the search warrant on Bill Spenning's place.

It's not just Gary Jubilin saying this. His version is backed up by the person he spoke to, Michael Willing. And you were the homicide commander at the time William two or went missing.

That's right.

Do you remember that happening?

I do.

How would you describe.

Hans Hans You know, old score homicide squad detective Hands had an abrupt but really effective style to be honest, you know, but he was determined and you know he worked up until the last day that he had in the detective's office at the homicide squad.

He was working his backside off. You know, you said he was a hard working detective. Was he a good detective? How was his management?

He was a very respected detective, certainly respected across the police force, respected within the homicide squad, respected by his team.

Decision was made under Hands were up to raid Bill's home and his office. Were you aware at that point whether or not Bill's alibi had been checked? I wasn't personally aware.

I was being advised as the homicide squad commander by Hands in terms of what he thought he was working on.

Did Gary ask you not to do it?

I recalled Gary in the last days before Hans retired. I think I was on leave and Gary wanted to jump in and take it straight away.

Did you tell Gary to leave it, to let the raids go ahead and to let Hands retire in peace?

Yes?

Did the right decision? Looking back? Oh, I don't know.

You know at the end of the day too, Hans was an extremely experienced investigator and I had no doubt or no reason to question anything that he was doing.

But Gary Jubilin kept asking questions.

So there was no investigation plan on this investigation.

When you took it over.

There was no investigation plan. Now I say that with a certain tone because I'm so surprised that I consider it was the state's highest profile investigation, if not the country's most high profile investigation.

An investigation plans are written document that essentially says how we are going to conduct this investigation.

How are we going to conduct the investigation, and the direction, the strategies, the approach to the investigation. That it's like a framework for an investigation.

Do you remember seeing an investigation plan that hands to go up.

I can't specifically recall it, but that's part and parcel of any investigation.

You would have expected that to be one. I would have expected there to be one. What were you told by your commander when you were given this job.

My commander, Mick Willing, Detective superintendent at the time, he told me that that's a bit of a cluster, meaning meaning that I needed to sort it out. When I talk it over.

Did you say to him words to the effect, this investigation is a mess. I need you to come in and sort it out.

Look, that's been raised in various actual proceedings. To be honest, I can't recall saying that to him. I did have concerns about the investigation. I can't recall saying those words.

Police documents from that time show Gary recorded written concerns about the previous running of the investigation into William's disappearance, which seemed to have shifted its attention away from and back to Bill Spedding over time, possibly to the detriment of other lines of inquiry. Gary wrote, but Bill's name was out there and it was everywhere in bulletins and

What only name? Was a very aggressive policeman. I don't know him personally, and I think he was handed a poison chalice. He was handed something that was going to cause him a lot of grief.

Do you remember on the day you were arrested, Yes, when in the morning outside your house there was a line of cars around the corner which was full of media. Yes, I was in one of those cars. This was April twenty fifteen, a few months after Gary Jubilin took over the investigation into William's disappearance. I was a reporter covering the case for a newspaper.

The thing was that I said to Margaret early one, there's something up, because there's media everywhere.

Were apprehensive. At that point.

I knew something was up, but I had nothing to feel guilty about. If I had been a criminal, I'll be out there panicky. But I wasn't a criminal, right. And the thing is that the media's out there. Why are they out there? Oh well, it's another day media out there.

It wasn't just some media out there. All the media were out there. A line of cars and TV trucks down the road and round the corner, and I was in them. I found out Bill Spedding was going to be arrested before it happened, from another journalist. Everyone seemed to know it was coming. I tried to get Gary jubil In to confirm it, but he wouldn't. Sometime in the mid morning, Bill left the house and drove off. We all panicked. Do you remember when I think you left and went into Port Macquarie?

Yes?

Do you remember what happened?

Yes? It was an absolute chaos.

It was chaos. We followed Bill in a convoy. None of us knew where he was going or why the police hadn't turned up yet to arrest him, but all of us were desperate not to miss the next big break in the William Tyrrell instigation. And I think at one point you sped up to try and get away from us, and we were overtaking cars. We may have jumped lights. The Sydney Morning Herald nearly crashed into my car, and I remember feeling at the time this was basically harassment.

I've thought to yourself, well, we'll just get back in the car and go home.

What was it like driving along the road with a convoy of reporters following you?

What can I know to.

At one point you're almost lost us. I think you went over around about and then a car came around and cut us off. But then we sped up, so we were breaking speed limits to catch up. Very bad boys, Yeah, we were pretty bad that day. But arguably so was whoever in the police force tipped off the media that Bill was going to be arrested. That's not normal for a homicide investigation. Like I said, I heard it from

When they took him away, I just lost it. I didn't know what I was doing. I locked myself in the house for days. I wasn't a game to go outside because of the media and everything.

Did the media treat you fairly?

Yeah? They just were there.

We couldn't move, We couldn't go anywhere. They were following us everywhere every day, and every morning we'd get up, they'd be at the front.

How bad did it get with the way people treated you after your name was made public?

We were in a fish birdcage or a fish tank. Everyone steering in like just coming down to court.

You could see people being on the TV and the papers and you could see them steering.

This wasn't only local news. Bill's name and face were plastered across the country after he was arrested. I was in the media pack the next day for his first court appearance. Afterwards, outside the court, someone from the police gave all of the journalists photocopies of a court document describing in graphic detail the Offense's police were saying, Bill committed Did you know that was happening?

No, of course not.

In that court document were the same allegations that had come up already decades earlier and had been dismissed once before by a judge. And no, it wasn't Gary jubilin handing out that document though.

We're using that as a leverage or pressure or something to create inverted como's a breakthrough.

The story exploded. What was the worst of it?

Holding the car with mag and this fellow got out of the car in front and made the gun symbol at me.

And what about the pathology?

Oh yeah, I was just called a little the bothologist.

Yes you asked to leave?

Oh yes, yes, he read it.

His name Bill Spidding.

How did your business go?

When? When? And wait to be gone? It dropped to nothing almost over night.

So your business is gone. This means your income's gone? Yes, I mean what does that do to you in terms of.

Well financially we're screwed.

After a few months, Bill got bail, meaning he was released from prison while waiting for a trial to take place. Things got so bad he and Margaret moved house, but his name was now tied up in the public imagination with William's disappearance.

I really would appreciate if you were never out the front of the children around.

You will not do any if you see children.

A neighbor told Bill she didn't want him outside with her children.

I just would like to.

Know that you would never have a myyeball out here in case you're bringing my children, if you're viewing any of my children or their friends.

I don't want the minds open while I'm playing out because.

I just don't want you around when there's so many children here.

Somehow strangers got hold of Bill's phone number. He got death threats. Bill reported these threats to the police, but nothing happened. One day, walking down the road, a man asked if he was Bill Spedding. Bill said yes, and the man lurched towards him, grabbing Bill's throat. Bill reported this to the police as well. He doesn't know if anyone got charged.

I don't know.

It's just been.

Just been a lot on us.

The kids are still feeling it as much as what we did.

Bill's wife, Margaret says the worst impact was on the kids.

Because they were happy when they were with us, they were really good, but after they just sort of went downhill.

Bill was prevented from seeing the kids after the first police raid after being arrested. His bail conditions stopped him from seeing any children. They weren't happy before William went missing. Those kids who were living with you, were they doing well, very well? They were done well at school.

The teachers just loved them and loved the work we're doing with them.

And did it then have an impact on them as well?

Did Big Time? Yes?

Your terrible impact in one way.

Well, they were pulled out from the stable home do a completely unstable environment. They were severed from their friends, severed from their sporting activities, their family which was us, and there was a lot of rebellion generated because of that.

So all that time between the original raid on your house and the end of the child, which I think was about three years, you couldn't talk to.

Them, well, I was prohibited from contacting anyone under eighteen.

Has that had an impact on your relationship with.

Them, with the children when they were deafer, say.

Don't you Yeah, Well, they keep saying while they were with us, they'd never been so happy when they were living with us, and then when that got taken away, they went downhill.

So if you're counting up the number of lives damaged by the investigation into William Tirell's disappearance, you have to add these four kids as well. All that damage might be one thing if Bill was found guilty of the offenses he was charged with, But on the fifth of March twenty eighteen, three years after the first police raid

Hey, Gary, can you hear me?

Yes, Dan, I'm not in the country at the time of the court's decision, so I talked to Gary Jubilin on a zoom call.

You sound like you have got a lot on ah.

Yes.

Have you had time in order that to read through the judgment in the Bill Spedding matter.

Yeah, eighty seven pages, so by playing through what I consider relevant.

Yeah, Gary Dubilin oversaw the investigation into William Tyrell's disappearance, but he wasn't the officer in charge of the prosecution of Bill Spedding over these separate offenses. That was a more junior detective who was part of Gary's strike force. And everything the strike force did was written up in progress reports, dozens of them, signed off by senior commanders, and the decision to charge Bill Spedding was assessed by

It seems to be that the essence of the judge's decision is that I and I say I because it does a lot seems to come beck.

On me in essence, the court found gary Strikeforce charged Bill Spedding with other unrelated offenses, offenses that had already been rejected decades earlier by another judge as a way of putting pressure on Bill to see if he or someone close to him would crack about William.

I've been at Corbyn door camp. From what junior officers are doing under my command, no one above me has been carbynt A camp what.

I was doing.

So there's a document the judge flags which you wrote, called the Strikeforce Roseanne proposed Operational Phase. But what bothers me about it is that describes the arrest of Bill Spedding as being phase five in a series of phases that are part of the investigation into what happened with William Tyrol. So it very much looks in that document that you are arresting Bill Spedding on these unrelated offenses

Okay, And to answer that this is a chicken before the egg and I'm not making this offense up. These are serious offenses. So yes, I'm going to use the fact that we've got primer facy case on a person that in the timing of it, it is a fase. But that to me, and this is what really agrees me about this decision. I think that was some of

You can't do that though, as a cop, can you You can't charge someone with unrelated offenses in order to pursue a different investigation.

Let me say this, if you're going to have to charge that person, do you think it's acceptable that if I charged Bill Spending, I didn't have a conversation with him after that point in time about William Terrell? Do you think I should have just charging Because this is where I think it comes down to.

Okay, Yeah, I'm saying you can't do what you say you did, and you're saying I couldn't have done the alternative. I would have been wrong not to charge him and not ask him about William.

I could imagine being in the coroner's court with the family looking at this investigation and being asked, so you were looking for the person responsible for abducting a three our child. Yes, and there was a person of interest that you were looking at, Yes, and you didn't think it was worthwhile speaking to him about the abduction case.

Like Unsurprisingly, Bill Spedding's lawyer feels differently about this.

That suggestion by Gary Jubilan that the matters were distinct that he was going to bring there on charges that were already open to charge has been made a nonsense of Now, I don't understand that if police officers have someone that they suspect for one thing, and they have reasonable and probable cause to charge them with another thing, that they might well bring those charges in order to put pressure.

But that wasn't this case.

This was a case where the chargers have been demonstrated to have been probably false and should never have.

Been laid, and that is what the court found. Reading through the judgment, you can see the alleged victims accounts of what happened change. A crucial eyewitness refuses to cooperate with the police for months, and when he finally does, his evidence is that the offenses didn't happen.

The case fell away. The case fell away as long as as it went. But there was also a failue to disclose by place.

The different problems with the case are not all included in police documents, including those provided to the prosecution lawyers.

The failed to disclose demonstrated further, the court found the malice that had initially swept them up.

Although the person described in the court judgment as having failed to disclose this information isn't Gary Jubilin. Gary was in overall command.

Okay, just to put some of the things you are alleged done to you, and these are things you alleged to have done directly rather than as a super The judge says that you or someone working for you leaked to the media that Bill Spedding was going.

To be arrested.

Yeah, out, both you and I.

Know that is a joke. Well, I know you didn't lead to me because I was trying to get you to tell me and you wouldn't tell me.

Yeah.

When I found out that the media were there, I said, someone from above has leaked this.

So you're sure you're saying it was leaked by somebody above you? Yes, So, Bill Spedding says, at one point when you came to arrest him, he was actually on the phone to his solicitor, and he said this to you, and you said, I don't care what fucking cunt you have on the phone. I can believe you're using that language.

I probably would run the pub when I'm arresting someone and doing that doing place work that wouldn't be used.

Bill Spedding's draft book describes the moment when he was arrested by Gary, but doesn't mention Gary using this language, which is something that was claimed later in court. Nor does Bill's book describe something else said in court that Gary threatened Bill, saying mister nice washing machine man, I am going to ruin you.

I can see you saying, mister nice washing machine repairer.

I can't recall saying that. I can't just but I put it in the context of a conversation. I am trying to find a three year old boy that could possibly be alive. So it wasn't a it wasn't an inappropriate conversation, but it wasn't a comfortable conversation. And I think that's the way.

What you were saying you didn't say, is the bit that is a threat, I am going to ruin you.

I can't make any threat, promise or inducement.

Who said what is really a relatively minor issue. The fact is the court found Bill Spedding should not have been prosecuted in the first place, and that once he had been, that prosecution should never have continued, and that the result did in Bill's life. Bill's own book wasn't read out in the Supreme Court, but our book was the one Gary and I wrote together. In it, we described how Gary wrestled with this decision about charging Bill Spedding. We wrote, quote, I'm about to pull the trigger on

Is in fact the highest award of damages in the country for a malicious prosecution in those circumstances. Well, the judges got it right.

That's Bill Spedding's lawyer, Peter O'Brien, Gary himself is unrepentant. My last question, given what you now know in the damage Bill Spedding says he's suffered, do you feel sorry for Bill Spedding.

I don't want people. If people do listen to this, I don't want them to misinterpret that we're going to accept the ruling of the court. But me personally, no, I don't.

But that's not the end of the story. After Bill was arrested and before he was found not guilty, he spent time in Cesnox jail, a few hours south of Kendall where William went missing. Bill's cellmate was a man called Tony Jones. And in jail, you were putting a cell with a guy called Tony Jones who used to be a neighbor of Bill's from years before.

And I hadn't seen or heard of him since, and I didn't recognize him. He had a bid put on way.

Tony was serving time for child sex offenses.

I said, doing what's what you said? We're probably being recorded.

Their conversations were recorded. It was another of Gary Jublin's operations. Tony Jones had been given a script to work to and a bunch of false documents claiming to show police had new technology that allowed them to track where somebody had been years earlier using them mobile phone. So the police were listening to the conversation when Bill said, well, that means they'll be able to tell I wasn't anywhere near the house on the morning William went missing. It's

It was the anly logical explanation. He didn't wander off. We know he didn't wander off, so what else could there be?

What was your feeling?

Well, I think that someone grabbed him off the street, bundled him into a car and he just disappeared, which is really really sad.

How much of you lost over the course of this process? Uge, what's your overwhelming emotion.

I'm tired, very tired. I'm just the whole lot to go away, Margaret.

I'm glad it's over? Is it over?

Isn't it? We don't know.

You once said that you said that there should be a parliamentary inquiry into the way the investigation of William's disappearance has been conducted.

I think so. I think the myth is should be.

Do you know the one other person who also thinks there should be a parliamentary inquiry into this investigation, it's Gary Jubilin.

I think so, because he was allowed to do what he was what he did, so it goes up to the higher police hierarchy that he was submitting his plan of action to his superiors, and at no point was a plan of action questioned, So maybe they should be the inquiry into.

That so it goes up to the senior police. Yes, Bill Spedding is an old man now and has spent several years in different courtrooms since William was reported missing. In the appeal court last year, I noticed he now wears a hearing aid and sat often with his eyes closed, his head nodding forward as the court chewed over his

The very nature of homicide investigation if people think you can tip toe rend the homicide investigation.

You're living in La La Land.

Homicide investigation is about finding out what's happened. I'm not talking about breaking rules here or going too far. I'm talking about you've got to go after a person. You've got to hunt that person, find that person and gather the evidence. And to do that, you're going to hurt people.

That's next time on Witness William Tyrrel. A lot of different people have been involved in making this series. Among them, the executive producer is Nina Young. The sound design was by Tiffany Demack. The pre pro juicers have been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jazz Bar, Phoebe Zakowski Wallace and Tabby Wilson. Research by Adan Patrick, original music by Rory O'Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs. The editor at news dot com dot Au is Kerry Warren. I'm Dan Box