Latest / The Front / Former DPP doubles down on Bronwyn Winfield

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Former DPP doubles down on Bronwyn Winfield · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, May twenty eighth. The new Australian made nuclear
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  Speaker 1: class submarines. That's a revelation in the Australian today. As
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  Speaker 1: the election. Foreign students who engage in campus protests should
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  Speaker 1: be booted out, says Opposition Home Affairs spokesman James Patterson.
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  Speaker 1: That's an exclusive on the Australian dot com dot a
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  Speaker 1: you right now. Former New South Wales's Director of Public
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  Speaker 1: Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery told the family of a missing mum
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  Speaker 1: Bromwyn Winfield that there was no evidence her husband killed her,
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  Speaker 1: despite a senior coroner finding there was a reasonable prospect
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  Speaker 1: a jury would convict him. John Winfield was never changed
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  Speaker 1: and denies any wrongdoing. That's today's episode.
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  Speaker 2: My advice to police in the coroner, after very careful
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  Speaker 2: consideration of all the evidence presently available, is that there
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  Speaker 2: is not sufficient evidence to charge Jonathan Winfield or any
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  Speaker 2: other person.
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  Speaker 1: Those are the words written by former New South Wales
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  Speaker 1: Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery in a letter to
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  Speaker 1: a Sydney man named Andy Reid in two thousand and three.
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  Speaker 1: They're being read by a voice actor. That's the moment
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  Speaker 1: Andy and his wife Michelle lost hope that they'd get
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  Speaker 1: answers in the disappearance of Andy's sister, Bronwyn. Bronwyn Winfield
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  Speaker 1: was thirty one, the mother of two little girls aged
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  Speaker 1: ten and five, and stepmom to an eighteen year old,
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  Speaker 1: the daughter of her husband, John Winfield. They lived together
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  Speaker 1: in a beach town, Lennox Head, on the wild New
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  Speaker 1: South Wales north coast. John was a surfey and a bricklayer.
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  Speaker 1: Bronwyn worked part time at the local takeaway food shop,
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  Speaker 1: but in nineteen ninety three, after tucking her children into
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  Speaker 1: bed one Sunday night, Bronwen disappeared. The last person to
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  Speaker 1: report seeing her was John Winfield, and the mystery of
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  Speaker 1: what happened to this devoted young mum is the subject
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  Speaker 1: of our newest podcast here at The Australian. It's called
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  Speaker 1: Bronwyn and it's reported and investigated by our national Chief
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  Speaker 1: correspondent Headley Thomas, who also created The Teacher's Pet.
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  Speaker 3: Where do you want to go?
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  Speaker 2: Today?
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  Speaker 4: Thirty one years since the sudden disappearance of a mother
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  Speaker 4: of two little girls. I'm driving on a winding road
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  Speaker 4: south of Byron Bay to the house that Bromwin had
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  Speaker 4: called her prison, past former dairy and sugar cane farms resident.
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  Speaker 1: There are some startling similarities between the stories of Bromwin
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  Speaker 1: Winfield and Lynn Simms. Lynn was the subject of Headley's podcast,
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  Speaker 1: The Teacher's Pet. Both young mums of two little girls,
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  Speaker 1: both utterly devoted, both going through a difficult time in
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  Speaker 1: their marriages, and in both cases the coroner recommended their
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  Speaker 1: husbands be charged with murder, and a Director of Public
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  Speaker 1: Prosecutions declined to recommend a charge. And here's another similarity.
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  Speaker 1: The coroner who recommended the charge in both Lynn and
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  Speaker 1: Bronwin's cases was the same person, Karl Milavanovitch, and the
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  Speaker 1: DPP who declined was the same person, Nicholas Cowdery.
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  Speaker 2: While Jonathan Winfield is the last known person to have
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  Speaker 2: seen her alive, there is no evidence that he killed
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  Speaker 2: her or had any role in her disappearance. Suspicion cannot
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  Speaker 2: be substitution for evidence.
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  Speaker 1: Nick Cowdery Casey was as close as you can get
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  Speaker 1: to a legal superstar.
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  Speaker 5: The Beast of Malaglow Ivan Malatt is serving seven life
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  Speaker 5: terms for the backpacker murders five young women and two men.
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  Speaker 1: Mohammed skaff was a member of a rape gang that
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  Speaker 1: terrorized young women in Sydney in the year two thousand.
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  Speaker 1: He led the agency that prosecuted some of Australia's most
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  Speaker 1: notorious criminals. He was feisty, fiercely independent and regularly fighting
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  Speaker 1: with the government and the media.
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  Speaker 3: Huge cases. What we're looking at now is cases that
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  Speaker 3: didn't make it too a prosecution during his time as DPP.
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  Speaker 1: Dave Murray is The Australian's National Crime correspondent and he's
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  Speaker 1: working with Headley and our team at The Australian on
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  Speaker 1: the podcast Bronwyn.
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  Speaker 3: Nicholas Cowdery is Australia's longest serving DPP. He was the
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  Speaker 3: Director of Public Prosecutions in New South Wales from nineteen
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  Speaker 3: ninety four to two thousand and eleven, so some sixteen
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  Speaker 3: and a half years.
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  Speaker 1: Dvps are very powerful figures in the Australian legal system.
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  Speaker 1: They run an independent agency which is government funded but
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  Speaker 1: legally protected from influence or pressure from politicians. Back then,
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  Speaker 1: the DPP was appointed for life, a measure designed to
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  Speaker 1: ensure no future government could turf out a chief prosecutor.
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  Speaker 1: Cowdery would have kept going and could still even be
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  Speaker 1: DPP today, but there was a quirk in the system
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  Speaker 1: which meant if he didn't retire before his sixty fifth birthday,
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  Speaker 1: he'd be denied a pension. Left the job when he
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  Speaker 1: was sixty four years and three hundred and sixty four
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  Speaker 1: days of age, and the government subsequently changed the law
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  Speaker 1: so DPPs are appointed for ten year terms and can't
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  Speaker 1: be reappointed again. That's designed to protect DPPs from worrying
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  Speaker 1: about whether or not politicians like their work. It's a
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  Speaker 1: tough job. The DPP is supposed to only recommend charges
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  Speaker 1: where there's a reasonable prospect of conviction, but they also
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  Speaker 1: have to factor in the unpredictability of juries. Sometimes a
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  Speaker 1: jury might convict even if the evidence is not everything
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  Speaker 1: the prosecution would like it to be.
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  Speaker 4: In December, Kelly Lane was convicted of murdering her two
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  Speaker 4: day old baby daughter Teagan in nineteen ninety six.
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  Speaker 1: The case of Kelly Lane is a good example. It's
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  Speaker 1: one of those cases people still argue about even after conviction,
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  Speaker 1: because baby Teagan disappeared without a trace. Lane's family didn't
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  Speaker 1: eat even though she was pregnant. Kelly Lane had had
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  Speaker 1: other pregnancies before and after Teagan, and her story was
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  Speaker 1: that after giving birth, she gave Teagan away. Just like
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  Speaker 1: in the cases of Bromwin and Lynn. There was no
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  Speaker 1: forensical crime scene evidence and there were no eyewitnesses to
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  Speaker 1: an alleged murder, but Kelly Lane was charged. In twenty eighteen,
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  Speaker 1: Nicholas Cowery talked about the case on the ABC's documentary Exposed,
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  Speaker 1: reported by Caro Meldrum.
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  Speaker 5: Hannah, this was an unusual case in that it was
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  Speaker 5: the possibility of a murder charge without a body, and
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  Speaker 5: that meant that the other circumstantial evidence had to be
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  Speaker 5: pretty compelling to justify bringing the proceedings.
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  Speaker 2: What was your own view?
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  Speaker 5: My own view was that there was a case of
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  Speaker 5: murder to be prosecuted. It raised all sorts of values,
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  Speaker 5: the relationship between a new mother and child, the idea
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  Speaker 5: of child killing, which is so abhorrent to the community generally,
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  Speaker 5: the nature of the accused and her conduct over a
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  Speaker 5: period of time that made it important. That meant it
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  Speaker 5: it got priority over other cases.
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  Speaker 1: This next moment in the documentary caused a big controversy
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  Speaker 1: and saw Nicholas Cowdrey resigned his post as chairman of
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  Speaker 1: the White Ribbon Foundation, which campaigns to end men's violence
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  Speaker 1: against women.
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  Speaker 5: I don't think Kelly Laine was a risk to the
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  Speaker 5: community and that she would go around killing other people's babies.
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  Speaker 5: She seemed to bear a bit of a risk to
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  Speaker 5: the virile, young male portion of the community. That's not
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  Speaker 5: grounds for putting her in prison.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, Cawtery later apologized for those remarks, saying they
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  Speaker 1: weren't respectful. In the case of Bromwin Winfield, she disappeared
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three one Sunday night, after having tucked
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  Speaker 1: her two little girls into bed. Her husband was the
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  Speaker 1: last person to see her alive. Of course, he has
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  Speaker 1: denied any involvement, but later on police interviewed him and
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  Speaker 1: ultimately the case proceeded to the coroner. Can you just
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  Speaker 1: explain for us, Dave, what happened to that coronial inquest
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  Speaker 1: and then what happened after that.
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  Speaker 3: The coronial inquest was led by the New South Wales
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  Speaker 3: Deputy State Coroner, Karl Milovanovitch. There were five days of
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  Speaker 3: hearings that was in accord in Lismore, and at the
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  Speaker 3: end of that the coroner recommended that a nun person
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  Speaker 3: mister when Phil Bromwin's husband, be prosecuted over her alleged murder. Now,
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  Speaker 3: the coroner had to meet two tests to do that.
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  Speaker 3: The first was that the evidence to be capable of
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  Speaker 3: satisfying a jury beyond reasonable doubt that a non person
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  Speaker 3: had committed an indictable offense, so a serious offense such
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  Speaker 3: as murder. And the second thing was that there had
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  Speaker 3: to be a reasonable prospect a jury would convict. The
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  Speaker 3: coroner concluded that was the case that both those tests
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  Speaker 3: had been met and so he referred it on to
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  Speaker 3: the DPP.
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  Speaker 1: The family wasn't happy with the pro former response they
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  Speaker 1: got from the DPP's office, saying a prosecution wouldn't be happening.
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  Speaker 1: They demanded a proper explanation. That's what prompted Nick Carterery's
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  Speaker 1: letter to Andy Reid.
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  Speaker 3: He actually said there was no evidence that Jonathan Winfield Bromwin,
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  Speaker 3: the husband, had killed her or had any role in
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  Speaker 3: her disappearance. And he listed a few factors in explaining this.
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  Speaker 3: A couple of those were that there was nobody in
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  Speaker 3: this case and so no cause of death. They're the
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  Speaker 3: same kind of things he raised in the separate case
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  Speaker 3: of Lyn Dawson or lind Sims as we know her.
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  Speaker 1: Now coming up, why the coroner wanted John Winfield prosecuted.
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  Speaker 1: Bronwyn is available now to our registered users and subscribers
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  Speaker 1: at bronwynpodcast dot com. You can contact our team with
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: any information at Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot
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  Speaker 1: au and we'll be back after this break. Nicholas Cowdery
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  Speaker 1: is seventy eight now, and Dave gave him a call
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  Speaker 1: to find out what he recalled of the case.
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  Speaker 3: I was interested in talking to Nicholas Cardu. I gave
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  Speaker 3: him a call. He was driving at the time. He
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  Speaker 3: had a little trouble hearing me at first, but we
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  Speaker 3: got there. I explained to him the Bronwyn Winfield case
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  Speaker 3: and the circumstances behind it, and I asked him if
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  Speaker 3: he remembered it. He said that he didn't have any
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  Speaker 3: recollection at all of the Winfield case.
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  Speaker 2: I had sixteen and a half years of cases, and
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  Speaker 2: I don't remember all of them. If that's what I
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  Speaker 2: said at the time, it would have been based on
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  Speaker 2: the evidence that was available.
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  Speaker 3: Now he must have covered hundreds, many hundreds thousands of
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  Speaker 3: cases as DPP, so that isn't entirely surprising, though I
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  Speaker 3: think for Bromin's faunidly it is obviously such an important
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  Speaker 3: decision they may have been surprised if he didn't remember it.
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  Speaker 2: The DPP makes an independent decision about those things, taking
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  Speaker 2: into account, of course, the recommendation and taking into account
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  Speaker 2: the evidence at the inquest.
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  Speaker 3: I was also interested in asking him whether his approach
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  Speaker 3: to cases of missing women would change now if he
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  Speaker 3: had the chance. He's seventy eight years old, he is retired.
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  Speaker 3: Would he have done things any differently? And he has
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  Speaker 3: a straight away no, he would do it exactly the same.
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  Speaker 2: I would look at the facts that we're able to
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  Speaker 2: be proved on the evidence, and I would look at
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  Speaker 2: the law and I would look at the prosecution guidelines.
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  Speaker 2: They were taken into account then and they are taken
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  Speaker 2: into account now by the DPP.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, we don't know what happened to Bromwinn Winfield.
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  Speaker 1: Nobody has ever been charged, her body has never been found.
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  Speaker 1: But we can probably assume, can't we, Dave, that she
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  Speaker 1: has met with her death. That's what the coroner found,
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  Speaker 1: and that she may well have been the victim of
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  Speaker 1: violence by someone who we don't know.
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  Speaker 3: The coroner was certainly comfortable to conclude that Roman Winfield
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  Speaker 3: was no longer alive, and he said that she had
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  Speaker 3: died honor about the sixteenth of May nineteen ninety three,
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  Speaker 3: and that's when she was last seen by her husband,
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  Speaker 3: Jonathan Winfield.
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  Speaker 1: You've been covering crime for a long time, Dave. Now,
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  Speaker 1: violence against women is the big theme of Australian society.
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  Speaker 1: It's something that everybody is talking about. There have been
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  Speaker 1: dozens of murders of women this year in Australia. What's
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  Speaker 1: your view about those judgment calls that were being made
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties and the nineteen nineties about not
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  Speaker 1: proceeding with charges in the cases of women who disappeared.
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  Speaker 3: Clearly, there has to be the evidence there to go
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  Speaker 3: ahead with such a serious charge and prosecution of the
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  Speaker 3: most serious offense you can get, murder. So anyone would say,
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  Speaker 3: of course it's important that the evidence be there. But
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  Speaker 3: looking back now, we can see that society used things
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  Speaker 3: differently now than we did back then, and police, for example,
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  Speaker 3: I think, perhaps looked at these cases and thought these
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  Speaker 3: were cases of runaway mumps, so people who might have
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  Speaker 3: run off with a new boyfriend or something like that.
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  Speaker 3: And that's certainly a concern that's been raised by the
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  Speaker 3: former coroner Karl Milovanovitch, that there was a systemic issue there.
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  Speaker 3: So I think it's really valuable now to go back
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  Speaker 3: and look at these past cases and say where these
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  Speaker 3: actually assessed the right way. These are sometimes circumstantial cases,
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  Speaker 3: obviously with nobody that they're missing, women have never been found,
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  Speaker 3: But did we actually sit down and assess all of
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  Speaker 3: the evidence fully and properly in the right way.
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  Speaker 1: You also sat through the trial of Christopher Dawson for
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  Speaker 1: murder Dave. Of course, he is now appealing before the
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  Speaker 1: Court of Criminal Appeal saying that the judgment was unsound
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  Speaker 1: and that he should be released from prison. What's your
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  Speaker 1: view in that matter where nobody was found, it was
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  Speaker 1: an entirely circumstantial case of the likelihood of getting convictions
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  Speaker 1: in these matters where there is nobody.
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  Speaker 3: My opinion in any case has always been to reserve
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  Speaker 3: judgment until you get all of the evidence. You can't
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  Speaker 3: really do that sitting on the sidelines and just picking
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  Speaker 3: up little bits and pieces when you actually, I think,
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  Speaker 3: sit down in a trial, a full trial like we
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  Speaker 3: did with Chris Dawson, and you see all of the evidence,
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  Speaker 3: and then at the end of that you can really
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  Speaker 3: weigh it all up, assess it and make a conclusion.
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  Speaker 3: And I think at the end of that case the
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  Speaker 3: evidence was overwhelming that Chris Dawson was guilty of his
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  Speaker 3: wife Lin's murder. But that of course does not mean
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  Speaker 3: that Jonathan Winfield had anything to do with the disappearance
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  Speaker 3: of his wife, and he firmly denies it. I think
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  Speaker 3: once again here we are trying to gather all the evidence,
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  Speaker 3: look at all the evidence before you come to a conclusion.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Dave Murray is the Australian's National Crime correspondent. You can
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: read all his reporting and all our stories as well
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: as listen to the podcast Bromwyin right now by joining
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: our subscribers at the Australian dot com dot au