Oh, Frank, I really don't think he had anything to do with me. Frank has lived around this area since the eighties.
He was always a figure in John's River. He lived on the highway and he's a hoarder. He's got heaps, so don't He hung around the shop. He was always hanging around the bus stop. He was dirty, so we just stayed away from him as teenage girls.
And I got to know him.
He gave me the creeps and I always thought he.
Was a perver.
So to recap the lead detective Gary Jubilin has been taken off the William Tiel investigation. It feels like very few people in the cops or the wider justice system want anything to do with Gary. At this point, someone in the police is leaking to the media saying more than ten detectives from the homicide squad have made complaints about Gary and claiming that he's being investigated for alleged bullying and falsifying Affi Davids, which he didn't do.
When I really got to know Frank was in that nine months. I actually lived in John's River. A couple of times I caught him in places where he shouldn't have been like squatting down behind my part are at you know, eleven o'clock at night. How would I describe him? Dirty, felthy. He doesn't look after himself. He doesn't even have a bar that you can have intelligent conversation with the.
Under Gary. The police strike force had been focused on a neighbor called Paul Savage, but Gary himself is now under investigation and will soon be charged with criminally recording four conversations with Paul without permission using his mobile phone. Gary won't be coming back to the homicide squad, and without him, the investigation into William's disappearance will turn away from Paul Savage, looking instead at other potential suspects.
I first heard about Frank living in a caravan at Moorland.
And he used to have sex with a calf.
That's sex with a calf, In case you missed it, he.
Used to have a calf tied up outside. That was the rumors.
Frank was definitely bad. A court heard he had a long criminal history, including firearms offences and escaping from custody.
And the rumors. You know, don't ever talk to Frank Abbott.
He'd been found not guilty of other charges including indecent assaults and murdering a teenage girl.
He killed his wife.
Frank didn't kill his wife. She died of natural causes.
He's a charm molester.
That one's true, though Frank is currently doing time for child sexual abuse.
I've seen Frank there and it was in that few days after William went.
Missing, because we were all talking about it.
This woman, Gale Veronica, was Frank's neighbor. He did work on her property, which is a short drive from where William was reported missing on the mid north coast of New South Wales.
You know, he always done a good job.
Gail says she saw standing on the highway near Kendall in the days after William went missing.
I say, old Frank standing there and he could hardly war.
Frank was elderly. Gail says. He had trouble walking.
And I debated whether to pick him up, but the last time I picked him up he's freaking stunt. I didn't want to stop and put him in the car.
Frank also had an indirect connection to the house in Kendall where William was staying. He knew another tradesman, a man called Jeff Owen, who called the house that morning about some work. And we've discovered Frank himself had been employed by the owner of the subdivision on which that house and the road outside it were built, and Frank likely knew the property before William went missing.
That you know what, Dan, I always thought, saying as a perver he liked girls. But now when I think of it, all the little boys he used to have hanging aroundy all the time.
Gail says. There was this one boy in particular who was quite young.
Oh, he was onny Oh.
I don't think he was even going to school because Frank used to getting ready and put him on the bus when he started school.
So maybe it's not surprising with Gary suddenly gone and the inquest he helped set in motion now ready to start within weeks, that those people wanting to distance themselves from Gary would start looking elsewhere.
But nothing was ever proved.
Did you know Frank after William went missing? No, he didn't, so he never spoke to him after that.
No.
No, And seeing that once that on the highway, what makes.
You think he wasn't involved in what happened to William.
I'm really doubting myself now, Dan, After since I've contacted you. You know, maybe Frank just.
Wanted everyone to think that.
Girls were his sickness. Why I don't think he was involved because he had a job to freaking walk that day. I've seen him on the highway.
He had a.
Job to walk.
He could hardly freaking walk in Oh. I don't know.
I'm doubting my I'm doubting my little I've.
Seen no evidence that suggests he is involved, but he certainly sounds creepy. I'm Dan box And from news dot com dot Au. This is Witness William Tyrell episode nine,
Something Wicked. At this point, it's easy to lose focus and concentrate on people like Bill Spedding, who successfully sued the state government after his life was unfairly turned upside down, and Paul Savage, who we talked about in the last episode, and Gary Jubilin and David Laidlaw, who would take over the investigation after Gary has taken off it, and to forget about the person at the center of this whole thing, William Tyrrel, the little boy who'd been taken from one
set of parents as a baby and given to another, and who grew up to love riding his bicycle, playing Daddy Tiger and wearing his Spider Man suit. I'm just saying you can be distracted, and that matters, actually, if you're one of the detectives whose job it is to find out what happened to William, when every moment's spent looking at the wrong person is a moment not spent looking for the right person. And no, I don't pretend to really know what it's like to be a homicide detective,
and I never knew William Tyrrell. I have no claim to any special knowledge of him, and don't pretend to be able to tell his story. But I do have a three year old daughter, and I know how much she fills our lives with joy and laughter and sometimes tantrums.
So that helps me remember why William matters. But if William matters, then it matters that we look at the investigation that so far hasn't found him and keep us asking why and what went right and what went wrong and who are all these different people who got caught up in this investigation?
Testing Testing, Hello helone.
Okay, Nina, you are the producer on this podcast, but you've actually done most of the work on Frank Abbott.
Yes, So at the time of William's disappearance, Frank was living in Heron's Creek.
We've been there. It's a really small village in the forest. There's a train line and a sawmill and a few houses and it's about ten minutes on the back roads from Kendall where William Tyrrel was staying.
That's right. Frank was living in a caravan on the property of daniel Parish. Daniel would later say at the inquest that he was scared of Frank and that Frank used to tell people that he knew where William's body was.
She used to brag to everyone a Q I keep on saying, this is that Jeff Allen's place. It made me sick, and I said, if you reported it to the police, and I don't know if he did or not. I certainly did tell him.
So that's Daniel speaking outside the inquest, And.
Also at the inquest, Daniel said that Frank had threatened him at some stage and told him he'd beaten a murder charge before and he wasn't afraid to go to.
Jail, so he'd beaten a murder charge.
Frank.
I think he's talking there about the murder of Helen Harrison.
So.
Helen's a seventeen year old. She went missing while riding her bike home from work on the very northern edge of Sydney in March of nineteen sixty eight.
But Frank was put on trial.
Yes, he was twenty two years later in nineteen ninety he was found not guilty, but prosecutors at the time argued that there were witnesses who said in court that Frank admitted that he followed Helen from work on her bike, grabbed her and drove her into the bush and raped and buried her. One witness said that Frank showed him a pair of blue underwear that he claimed belonged to Helen. And when Helen's body is discovered in a shallow grave, she's naked from the waist down.
Okay, But Frank's parents say he was somewhere else the day the murder happened, and he's ultimately found not guilty by the court.
I went through his court records and there's also a separate and decent assault charge on there from twenty ten, but again Frank was found not guilty, and going through other records, I also found that Frank had a two year old son that died in nineteen eighty four. His death certificate lists the cause of death as asphyxiation.
Which could be completely benign.
Could be anything. Sometimes when a child dies in their sleep and there's sort of a sleeping accident, that could be assixiation.
Yep.
Okay, So there's nothing we can take from that cause of death. But we do know that Frank wasn't charged in relation to that at all. But the more you ask about Frank, the more you run into rumor and suspicion. At the inquest, a local shopkeeper said that Frank talked about William a lot in the weeks after he went missing. He said that Frank said the police were looking in
the wrong place. There was also evidence at the inquest where one of his neighbors said that she heard a child screaming on the day after William went missing while she was out in her garden. But one interesting thing is that we were in that area on our last trip. I heard what sounded like a child screaming, but later realized was a peacock.
Okay, so we got rumor and we got suspicion. I know a little bit about how the police investigating William's disappearance started looking at Frank, so Daniel Parrish, who said he was scared of Frank. He reported Frank's claim that the three year old was on Jeff Owen's property. The inquest he Jeff had called the house where William was reported missing that morning about doing some work, but he
said no one told him the children were there. Jeff's evidence at the inquest was he's pretty sure he didn't have any contact with Frank that morning, but Frank later moved into a caravan on Jeff's property, and police records show that Gary Jubilin asked one of the detectives on the strike force to look at Frank in twenty eighteen. I've also spoken to a woman called Jody Huntley who
lived next door to that property. She posted on Facebook asking why that block of land where Frank lived hadn't been searched and saying that there was a kid's spider man sleeping bag in Frank's caravan. So someone else on Facebook told Jody that she should report this. Jody told me she'd contacted crime stoppers but didn't hear back, which we've heard quite a few times in the course of this series. So Jody went to the police in person, and a week or so after she said the police
the detectives were at her door. Then the block of land where Frank had been living was searched. Jody and her husband gave evidence at the inquest into William's disappearance, saying that Frank kept talking about William, even one night he knocked on their door to tell them that Jeff Owen was a person of interest in the investigation, and
they suspected Frank was sexually abusing their dog Look. Unsurprisingly, Jody had sleepless nights about all this, she said, but after giving her evidence, she says, everything went quiet and she doesn't understand why. Here's where I think the inquest into William's disappearance runs into a problem because it's running at the same time as the police are investigating people,
particularly Frank Abbott, and that's not normal. An inquest normally runs only after the police have exhausted their investigation and can't do anything more with it themselves.
Worldwide, these cases have proven to be the most difficult to solve.
This is the lawyer leading the inquest in his opening statement.
William was murdered and that's a big If.
He says it's very rare for a child to be abducted by a stranger and murdered.
Then it may be one of those rear three percent of cases.
But abduction by a stranger is definitely something the inquest is considering.
The offender in such crimes is a sneaky complex offender who has hidden his or her desires for some time and has chosen to act on those desires.
Only they haven't got evidence of a sneaky complex offender, and the lead detective Gary Jubilin, who was planning to use this inquest to publicly question Paul Savage, is not
called to give evidence. Instead, the inquest takes a look at several of those people we've talked about in this series, Bill and Paul, and Tony Jones, who doesn't have an alibi for the morning in September twenty fourteen when William was reported missing and whose burnt out car was later found in the bush, and who was subsequently convicted of child abuse. Tony's evidence at the inquest is that he didn't have anything to do with William's disappearance, though he
couldn't remember what he was doing that morning. After giving evidence, Tony gets into a confrontation with the media waiting outside the inquest why can't you remember where you wear that day? Smashing a photographer's camera to the ground and is bundled inside a car by detectives. There are other people the inquest looked at. Also.
This is an electronically recorded interview between Detective Sony Side and Mark Dukes and at the Wogga Police station.
There's talk of a pedophile ring operating in the Kendall area.
Alside president is Detective Sonia Castle.
Lonigan an evidence about other local sex offenders, not all of whom cooperate with a police investigation or even answer their questions.
You've been given legal advice not to saying him, so we're going to record that.
But it doesn't seem to go anywhere.
Do you wish to sign hing for the purpose of this interview? Can you please state your full name? Please? And diverse.
There's no real evidence of anyone's involvement.
I'm going to ask you some questions in relation to the disappearance and suspected murder of William Tyrell at Kendall on Friday, the twelfth day of September two thousand and four to a eight Do you understand that? Do you understand that?
And no one at the inquest seems able to answer the question what happened to William Tyrell, at least it seems until the inquest starts looking at Frank.
So.
One of Frank Abbott's friends is a man named Ray Porter. He drove a white Holden Commodore station wagon, and the inquest heard that Frank sometimes drove Ray's car, and other witnesses would also describe Frank driving a white station wagon around the Kendall area.
William's foster mother says she remembers seeing a white station wagon parked outside the house where William was reported missing.
She does and in twenty nineteen, Frank's friend Ray Porter.
So he's the guy who drives a white station wagon.
That's right. He was in a nursing home and he apparently makes a confession telling a nurse I didn't do anything wrong. All I did was give my best mate and a boy a lift. And the nurse asked him at the time, are you talking about William Tyrrell?
That's the evidence from the inquest.
That's right, yeah, and Ray replied yes. Ray also said that he picked up his best mate and the child from a shared behind Kendall Public School and drove them three hundred kilometers north. The nurse reported what she heard to another nurse who went to the police.
But there are problems. If that child's was William Tyrell, then how did he get from the house where he's staying outside Kendall to the school which is at a look at about two and a half kilometers away. And I guess if the idea is that Ray's mate, possibly Frank Abbott, took William from the house to the school, then how did that happen without a car? And if that person had a car already, why did he need Ray Porter to pick him up and drive him north.
The other problem is that ray Porter was in Port Macquarie Hospital getting dialysis on the day that William went missing. His car was also not picked up on the traffic cameras along the highway outside Kendall that day, but it was the next day and the day after.
And another problem is that the inquest doesn't start looking at this in public until March twenty twenty, which is a full year after the inquest starts, during which time Frank has all the evidence sent to him in prison by the inquest so he can read it before the inquest hearing happens, including everything suggesting a connection to a white station wagon or William Tyrrell. And at the same time, the police investigation into Frank is still ongoing because they're recording his phone calls.
I like, Martin, good day, Frank. You solicitor came in yesterday and that was to do with your appeal.
Yeah, is she come? And I asked her about the other paper and that tune. She said, just don't say nothing.
She said, not to say nothing.
Yeah.
This is a phone call between Frank Abbott and a Christian pastor named Martin Parrish who got to know Frank's through his local chapel in the Backwards near where William went missing. So we've got transcripts which were tended at the inquest. This is somebody else reading them. This call is July twenty nineteen, so that's a few months after the inquest started and Frank's in prison for child sex offenses against multiple children.
At this point, the pastor, Martin Parrish says he's spoken to Frank's lawyer.
Okay, I got to speak to her on Monday, and she told me she had booked in to see you tomorrow.
Well, I asked about the thing about the paperwork. I didn't understand a lot of it, and she said that you just told me. Don't answer. You're going to be charged with something else.
At this point, we don't know what that something else is.
And I said, there's nothing there that I can be charged with anything else. What I said was the truth. It doesn't involve me in any way.
But there is a second phone call that same.
Day, Hello, get a Frank. Twice in one day.
Frank says he's been moved to prisons and he's been kept in isolation.
Mate. I guess they're doing it because the police any stage could release names of their current investigation and that were done and go through the whole system and put you at risk.
The officer, he said, he spoke they got other charges or something, and I said, well, all this is just a person of interest. I'm not charged, just a person who interested.
That that's all. I understand that you're a person of interest.
That phrase person of interest is the key here, because at this time Frank is a person of interest in the investigation into the disappearance of William Tyrell mad have you put have all.
The statements gone back into your personal files or are they still sitting with you in the cell.
I've still got all the papers in the cell here with me.
The two men talk about papers and statements and it becomes clear that Frank has been set and the police brief of evidence which the police gave to the inquest and the inquest gave to Frank. So they talk about what other witnesses have told detectives.
Yep, so I gather my brother is saying that he that you borrowed the car without consent or what is he saying?
They're talking about Daniel Parish, who's Martin's brother, and Frank had been living with Daniel. It was Daniel who said he was scared of Frank and that Frank used to drive his cars.
Yeah, well no, he said I had the car and all that, and I drove around everywhere. But he said I never borrowed his car any time. I never took his car without permission any time. They wouldn't let me have the car, and he had the keys, he had all the cays.
At this point, Daniel hasn't yet given this evidence in public, but it sounds like Frank has his witness statement with him in the prison cell, and he and Martin Parish, the pastor, are talking about Frank's was reponse.
Yeah, hey, look, I can imagine him not letting you use the car because you don't have insurance. And then he told me he'd make you use the car when you were doing him a favor.
The two men also talk about another witness, a child who we can't identify. The inquest heard that this child was said to have told a babysitter that Frank claimed he killed William and put his body in a suitcase.
And I think he told somebody that I told him that I put him in a bag and buried him. And he said if you shared anything, I'm gonna snap mum's neck. I'll tell you about it when you come down, and I'll ask just say that Jeplin and the welfare Yeah good, okay, now God bless see you.
Okay. So to an outsider, this sounds extraordinary, But is it.
It's a long way from perfect. I asked off formal homicide detective about it. He's not someone who's worked on William's case. He's worked on a lot of murders. And a lot of inquests. So he told me that normally, with an inquest, yes, you would let all of those involved, including potential suspects, see the evidence. And that's because an inquest is only supposed to happen after the police have exhausted every lead in their investigation, which we know didn't happen in this case.
And in court during the inquest, Frank is able to take part. He's on an AVL link from prison, so he's listening to what people are saying about him, and he's even able to question the witnesses. You said it's far from perfect. I think that's been kind. So you've got these two processes, the inquest and the police investigation into William's disappearance, running at the same time, potentially running
on top of each other. At least at this point, they seem to be both heading in the same direction. And I do know from talking to both William's birth and foster families that they say the coronal lawyers were feeling confident that they were openly telling people they were
on the right track. Though something happened because last month, when the inquest came back for that week long hearing, at one point Frank Abbott interrupted, saying that two of the coroner's lawyers came to see him, telling him he was no longer a person of interest. The coroner cut him off, so we got no explanation. We don't know if that's true or if Frank is mistaken. All we do know is what's in these tapes?
Burning up?
Morning? Frank, Sorry, I mister call yesterday.
This is still July twenty nineteen. It's a week after the last call. Frank and the pastor, Martin Parrish talk about the inquest in more details.
When do you when do you have the interview?
Oh?
Is that next week for the court guys with record case?
Yeah? So yeah, it's all going to be by video link.
Yeah, Wednesday, It is good.
Yeah. Yeah, the questions you asked me just before you left here. You probably need to get legal advice on those questions.
Yeah, that's what I was going to do. None of the he shared anything I had anything to do with it. But that's just what you know. I want to find out what happened to him, you know, just yes that I want them to find who done it.
Then the pastor says something revealing.
Have you heard of a name Savage.
The name Savage, Paul Savage.
Yeah, yes, I've heard of it. It was only in his record. I don't know him outside any of that.
I just heard that name, and I'm not making any connections.
I'm just saying, yeah, yeah, I got his records. Yep, Yeah, it's in me files on that here.
What's the significance of these two talking about Paul Savage.
Well, you can hear Frank say he's got his records. It's in the files in his cells with him. And that means that Frank, who at this point is considered a potential suspect, doesn't just have the evidence that plays have gathered about him, He's also got access to the evidence about other potential suspects.
So meaning if he's preparing his response to being questioned, he has everything he could possibly need.
Absolutely. Shortly after this call, in August of twenty nineteen, they searched a property near where Frank was living and they brought in heavy equipment to move piles of old deadlogs.
On the same day, Frank and his pastor are on a phone call discussing the evidence.
Oh, I said that it was fourteen oh seven forty eight.
What was that fourteen oh seven.
Fourteen oh seven is the time a traffic camera out on the highway picks up one of the cars belonging to Daniel Parish, the man who Frank once lived with and who says Frank might have driven them.
Fourteen So that's two clock in the afternoon. Yeah, but William Tyrell went missing much.
Earlier than that. Yeah, ten o'clock, ten o'clock.
Yeah, okay, so they're checking up on every car that give me a second. The police they're digging up, digging back in Heron's Creek again.
Yeah.
So I don't think it's got anything to do with you at all.
The pastor is wrong about that that search had everything to do with Frank Abbott.
Oh look, I these are all the things that you need to write down that it doesn't make sense.
Ring hell, and I ask Helen seeking organize for me to go on there.
I will give Helen a ring when I get home.
A week after that phone call, it's announced that the public hearings of the inquest are going to be suspended for six months. And the coroner doesn't explain it. But Frank and his pastor keep talking on the phone, and there's a few clues in these convers suggesting that the delay is due to the police investigation.
Martin, are you.
You've read all the witness statements. Is there anything that is there anything? Did anything that they say anything about you? And the conversation with David Abbott, No, brother.
I don't. I don't think he ever spoke to David. Yeah, but Bernie said in his statement that I used to have arguments with Jeff in eleven in twenty eleven. In the twenty twelve.
He used to have arguments with Jeff.
Yeah. Well, at the time I was arguing with Jeff was that he used to go inside so because he didn't want to listen to it with.
Jeff Jeff Owen.
Yeah, he said Jeff had many cars. Well, Jeff never I hadly know him. He had two the white Sadan.
Thing he had there again is the mention of a white car like the one William's foster mother says she saw that morning. Soon after, there's a suggestion the police are looking at where Frank was on the morning William was reported missing.
Yeah, that's in my head that I was there on the Thursday working to him till lunchtime. And as you know, the police got proof that I was in or Hope yep, from nine point thirty ten o'clock because I drew money out of me Meank there.
So yeah, like, look, I don't know where the police are up to.
Two months later, they talk about detectives visiting Frank's brothers, Lez and David.
Yeah.
I talked to Lez and David a few days ago now and they see that. Yeah, they've been up there and seeing them.
Yep.
Yeah, they went up and paid the visits.
Yeah, they were over here the other day too. They were here the other day and I was asked to go speak to their QC.
Yeah, because they was up there and they said, oh, it's all about that murder back in nineteen ninety one, and said some brought that up. They said I beat the charger and found not guilty, but they still bring it up. They said, I's done these and he's done that. We think he might have done this one.
That's the murder of Helen Harrison, the seventeen year old who was abducted, raped, and later found buried. Frank was found not guilty, but Frank's saying that police are asking questions about it and that they think he might have been involved in William's disappearance.
Well that's their thinking.
Yeah, Now they got CCTV footage of Thursday. He was just Heather Bray. He was at McDonald's at heather Bray. They stopped there for a meal on their way up up to Kendall.
Heather Bray was where William's foster family stopped at a McDonald's on the drive from Sydney up to Kendall, where William would go missing.
And I borrowed somebody's car and went down enticed him out with Lowy's and ice cream out of the yard.
So that's what the that's what the feds are trying to deduct.
They told David that's what i'd done. I borrowed somebody's car and went down and enticed him out of the yard. I didn't even know there was anybody like any kid led straight and I've never been in that street in my life. And why would I borrow somebody's car to go up there at that particular time if I didn't even know there was anybody there.
The pastor Martin Parrish tells Frank again that the police are looking at Frank's relationship with Jeff Owen, who's the tradesman who called the house where William went missing on the same morning to talk about some work that needed doing.
So they're saying that you had a good friendship with with Jeff at that stage.
And at this point, Nina, I think you have to ask yourself, what was this pastor doing. So I get the idea of ministering to his flock, and I get the idea of Christian forgiveness, but it seems to go beyond that. In November twenty nineteen, the police sit Frank Abbot down for a formal interview.
They wanted to make a record of interview. I said, no, I'm not speaking to you because I had nothing to do with it. And they said, we got all this evidence and all that, and I said, well, if you got it, why aren't you charging me instead of coming to question me all the time. So it's a pretty traumatic day. Oh would have been a traumatic day.
Oh.
They talked to me for ten minutes, asking me questions if you played guilty and that now help you and all this and then Martin will forgive you. Now, I said, what for something I didn't do?
What did they say that Martin will forgive you? So do they think you're lying to me.
That's what they said. Anyway, they said they found a spider Man's suit, kids clothes or something.
They found what a spider men suit and.
Kids clothes or garbage. Because they're just trying to frighten or make me confess to something I didn't do.
So it's okay for them to lie to you and tell you lies. They do it.
All the time.
That same month, the pastor tells Frank that he should memorize something.
Yep, yeah, you might memorize. You probably don't have anything with you right now about what my brother has said.
Have you want me to memorize?
Ah? His statement.
That's the statement of Daniel Parrish, who'd gone to the police about Frank. Months later, Daniel would give evidence of the inquest.
The inquest also called the pastor Martin Parish to give every asking him about these phone conversations and others where he'd confirmed phone numbers that Frank was After the pastor was asked, you seem to be taking up issues that Frank Abbot raises with respect to the Tyrill investigation and in a sense doing his leg work, and the pastor agreed. A few weeks ago, Nina and I drove up to Heron's creek man that said this way, not the first left, but take the second left, and then it's just around.
The corner.
Where martin parishes Isolated Chapel stands.
Yeah, there we go.
There's the church next to his house and his quiet, sunlit garden. Okay, there's a car, so there's someone home. I'm going to swing as round and park it facing that way in the shade, so if we need to leave. I wanted to ask him why he did this leg work, as Frank Abbott prepared for the inquest, particularly given Frank was then in prison for abusing children. But we couldn't
find the pastor. So the neighbour says Martin has been away for a month and she doesn't know why, but she's gonna She wouldn't give me his number, but she's gonna call him and give him mine. We also left a written message posted through his screen door. I've got a number for another priest who works with him.
Oh cool.
When we're back in the office, we've heard nothing.
Yeah, you know, how's everything there? Good?
Yeah, everything's good.
Oh yeah, that's good.
Anyway, Jeanette's not with me, so she sends her lad, Yeah.
Yeah, God bless you all there, and I'll give you a ring bit later on.
Okay.
And another thing we can't explain at this point is why, when the inquest finally resumes after that six month break in which the police investigated Frank Abbot, Frank is not called to answer questions in public.
The final part of an inquest into the disappearance of New South Wales toddler William Tyrrel has begun.
Meaning all of this will be left hanging without resolution and crucially, there is still no evidence that puts Frank Abbot at the house where William was reported missing.
Rob What are we likely to hear from today's proceedings by now?
There's a new leadership in the police force.
This is expected to be the final stage of the William Tyrrel inquest, set down for two weeks here in Tare.
As well as replacing Gary jubilin.
The Inquistor's also heard from a number of high profile people of interest.
There's a new homicide Squad Commander Scott Cook, and a new commissioner in charge of the police force, Mick Fuller.
This morning, New South Wales Police Comissioner Michael Fuller addressed criticism police have fallen away from investigating William's disappearance, and.
The reality is that there are four hundred plus cold cases and I have.
To make sure that each one of those is getting the same sort of effort.
And by now William's foster parents have gone public in another podcast with the journalist Leah Harris.
Because it's outrageous that this has happened. It's outrageous has taken this amount.
Of time criticizing the police for not doing enough to find William.
So.
I don't trust police.
I can't and for taking Gary off the investigation.
And nobody, nobody within that police organization is fighting for William.
The only people who are fighting for William is us and.
Gary and personally criticizing those now in charge.
We have been ignored.
I have had to write letters, I have left telephone calls, I have left messages.
And we have been ignored.
Who exactly has ignored you?
Mix Faller and he's passed it down the chain of his command till Lands with Scott Cook.
And how has he handled it? Not very well, unprofessional, incredibly lack of.
Emphasis, extraordinarily poorly, and we would have expected a whole lot more from someone of that sort of position in this seniority of the police force.
Sorry, that's just crickets in the wind. Crickets in the wind. The sound of silence has been deafening, and it's not for us. Is this for William?
The inquest doesn't come to an end as expected. Instead, it's adjourned again for months. Around the same time, Gary Jubelin is put on trial for recording his conversations with the person of interest, Paul Savage. Gary's defense is basically that he had a lawful reason to record them because he was doing police work and also worried that Paul might accuse him of doing something he hadn't, which actually
Paul does do. I remember sitting in the courtroom when Paul gave evidence saying that Gary had threatened to arrest him and saying Gary told him that he was coming back the next day to pick Paul up. And we know Gary didn't say that because Gary recorded their conversation. But spoiler alert, the magistrate doesn't agree and finds him guilty, accusing Gary of pursuing Paul at all costs, accusing Gary of lying on the witness stand, saying Gary's investigation was
above and beyond legality. Honestly, it's pretty full on criticism and meant absolutely no one in the police or in the court system wants anything to do with Gary after I'm not challenging the magistrate's decision, but there are a few interesting things I noticed sitting in court watching Gary Jubilin on trial. Firstly, the police don't always let these
things play out so publicly. Since then, there have been other police officers charged with various offenses, and the force doesn't always issue a press release, let alone brief the media off the record.
Tonight nine News can reveal details involving a high ranking member of the New South Wales Police Force facing criminal charges.
This was last year and the high ranking member of the police force allegedly downed about twenty drinks at a work party then got in his car to drive home.
I'm joined by our chief court reporter, Tiffany Genders. Tiff what can you tell us?
Pete, a senior member of the state's police executive has been charged with high drink driving six months after allegedly crashing and later abandoning his vehicle.
This CoP's name will not become public. Instead, it will remain suppressed for forty years after the court agreed to what was an extraordinary request from the police force protecting his identity and connection to others in the top ranks.
Ordinarily, when officers are charged, immediate releases issued, but that didn't happen in this case. We've also put questions to the Commissioner and Police Minister about who within the senior ranks had knowledge of the case and whether it was treated differently from others.
Something else I thought was interesting about Gary's trial was how the allegiances against him were made by another officer who he'd fallen out with over the William Tiole investigation, called Craig Lambert. The two men even squared up against each other in the offices of the homicide squad and
had to be separated physically in court. At Gary's trial, the police said that Craig was unwell and could not give evidence, but in a separate Industrial Relations Commission hearing, Craig said that he let police know he was available to give evidence in Gary's trial if required, and Craig's account of one of those recorded conversations was completely different to the version heard at Gary's trial, where one detective said on oath that Gary made him record it, but Craig,
who was also in the room at that time, said this didn't happen. Only by the time that this version of events became public at the Industrial Relations Commission, Gary had been convicted, meaning his downfall from celebrated detective to criminal was complete. Putting Gary on trial at this time
meant risking the entire William Tyroll investigation. It's not me saying that it's the police in their application during the trial for another suppression order on the evidence, arguing it might quote lead to potential suspects destroying inculpatory evidence or manufacturing exculpatory evidence, which could jeopardize the investigation. The police lawyer stood up in court and admitted it would have been preferable to delay the trial, but that didn't happen
for whatever reason, and the trial happened. The final interesting thing took place on the last day of that court hearing when William's foster mother was called to give evidence in Gary's defense, and she doesn't hold back.
The biases and the political agendas around William's matter are just disgraceful.
This is William's foster mother not speaking at Gary's trial, but in an interview with the journalist Leah Harris, do.
You have faith in the current police force to find out what happened to William?
No?
No, No.
William's foster mother says much the same thing on the witness stand in Gary's trial. Her big fear is that the case will be sent to unsolved homicide with everything we've heard in this series about that team and backlogs and missing evidence and cases going unopened.
Because this is what's going to happen. It will go to inquest and the colin will say, police, you've done a great job, thank you very much, and deliver an open finding. Police will go great, we did a really good job.
Let's push that over onto unsolved and it's going to sit there and people are going.
To forget about it.
We can't let people forget William.
At Gary's trial, William's foster mother tells a story about meeting the new homicide squad commander Scott Cook. Nina. That's the transcript of her evidence. Can you read it.
We said hello, exchanged pleasantries. I said to him, I'm surprised we're actually meeting because given the conversations we had over the phone. I did not expect to meet mister Cook at all. After the pleasantries, mister Cook said to me, you are not the only families of victims of crime. I stopped and looked at him and I thought, no, but you are at the inquest of one of those victims. He then proceeded to say, William is not our only case. I then said to him, William is three years old.
He was taken from his grandmother's house.
It was a.
Street where there's properly twenty houses on it. We were sitting just around the corner, and he's a child in care. I don't think you've got any other cases that describes that, and I don't think you can just give up on him.
She's asked in court if Scott Cook replied to.
This, and she says no, she says. I then asked him, so are you planning on taking William's case to cold cases? And he said yes, it's going to unsolved.
Which he believes it will in six months time. They'll probably pull it out again and someone will have a look at it, and you know they look at it. Yeah, well, you know, nothing news come through.
We'll put it back over there in that.
Box and I'm thinking, I can't believe you're saying this to us here at the inquest for this little boy. You're saying this to his parents, and.
That's kind of what's happened. The investigation into William's disappearance is not officially an unsolved homicide, but the new lead detective, David Laidlaw, works for the unsolved Homicide team as to others in the strikeforce currently on it. At Gary's trial, William's fostermother also says she was told there had been a handover of information from Gary Jubilin to David Laidlaw, that.
Whole knowledge transfer. I was really really worried about it, and I said specifically to Scott Cook, who's doing the handover. He told me Gary Jubilin was doing a handover with David Laidlaw. After those conversations, David Laidlaw said to me, there is no handover. I'm not allowed to talk to Gary.
So I'm really confused because I'm told that Gary and David Laidlaw meet regularly and have been meeting to do a handover. And then on the other hand, I get told very clearly that Gary is not allowed to speak with anybody about.
This matter, and she says, I'm angry.
She was, she was crying and shaking in the witness box, and I'm.
Really angry because police are playing with William. Doesn't matter what we think, doesn't matter what impact it has to us, it matters.
To William, saying this in Gary's trial is front page news. William Tyrrel's foster mum makes stunning claim about senior officer and it's personal. That was February twenty twenty. A month later, in March, I spoke to William's foster mother, who said she'd been told the police had dropped the Paul Savage line of inquiry and the police Commissioner, Mick Fuller was still not responding to their emails or phone calls. In July, a detective Andrew Lonegan had worked on the strikeforce before,
was brought back and asked to review the investigation. Andrew Lonegan later said in court that he was aware of the foster mother's criticism, and I've seen an email sent by one of the detectives saying they identified William's foster mother as a significant person of interest. And that happened a month later in August and the same August, the strike force arranged to meet William's foster mother at the crossroads outside Kendall, where they'll later suggest that she disposed
of William's body. But that also means the police are investigating yet another person of interest while the inquest is still going. Because the inquest comes back in October for what it says will definitely be its final hearings.
William's foster parents also spark about their frustrations and the lack of progress.
Today.
We are at the same point we were six years ago. Life will never be the same, William's biological family told the court.
Only it's not the final hearings, and the coroner doesn't hand down her findings as she promises, because within weeks the police are installing covert surveillance inside the foster parents' home, and a year later, the new South Wales Police Commissioner will be giving this radio interview.
You know, my understanding is from the investigators used that there is certainly one person in particular that we are looking closely at.
How confident are you about the suspect that your detectives have in mind.
Look, I'll say this, Ben, I'm confident that the team who has the investigation at the moment, I'm confident they can solve it. I truly believe that.
We'll get into that in detail next time on Witness William Tyron. 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 Dimack. The producers have been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jazzber, Phoebe Zakowski Wallace and Tabby Wilson. Research by Adan Patrick, original music by Rory O'Connor. Voice acting on this episode from JK. Cagatay. Our lawyer is Stephen Coombs. The editor at news dot
com dot Au is Kerry Warren. I'm Dan Box