Latest / The Front / Peter Costello denies assault — and a fresh twist in Bronwyn podcast

Transcript

Peter Costello denies assault — and a fresh twist in Bronwyn podcast · The Front

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Friday, June seven. Nine Entertainment chairman Peter Costello, the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: former Federal Treasurer, has knocked a journalist to the ground
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: at Canberra Airport.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Mister Cassello, my name is Liam Mendez from The Australian.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: The incident occurred when The Australians reporter Leam Mendes approached
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Costello for comment on the crisis engulfing nine's chief executive
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Mike Sneezebe over sexual harassment allegations against a former senior executive.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Costello barges towards Mendes and pushes him to the ground.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Why won't you support mister sneezebe publicly good? So well,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: you've got to answer the questions, mister Castello don't and
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: you've just assaulted me. You've just pushed me. It's all
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: on camera, mister Cassello.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Costello has denied the incident was an assault, claiming Mendors
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: simply fell over.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Mister Costello, did you assault a journalist at Canbra Airport?
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: When questioned in Parliament House by journalists including the Australians,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Rhiann and down. Costello told them to be careful not
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: to fall.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Mister Costello, where you consider your position, Get in front
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: and I'll come and talk you all out.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's much ways you'll fall over your coup. When
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I came to a Cambra airport, there was a reporter
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: walking backwards with his phone filming. As I walked past him.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: He walked back into an advertising pack card and he
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: fell I did not strike him. If he's upset about that,
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, but I did not strike him. And it
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: was a public place which I was entitled to walk through.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: And as I said to you, he hit the advertising
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: balot he fell over. I'm sorry about that. I wish
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: that hadn't have happened. But you know this is I've
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: seen it happened a million times.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: There's already speculation that this could put your chairmanship at risk.
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: What is your response to Rosa The.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Journalist said, you assaulted me and you loved and walked away.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: You can watch the video and read what triggered the
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: encounter right now at the Australian dot com dot au.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: The fourth episode of the Australian's latest investigative podcast series
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: is out today Bronwyn tells the story of missing lennox
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Head mum Bronwyn Winfield, who disappeared from the idyllic surftown
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: in the early nineties. Today, Bromwin's creator, The Australian's Headley Thomas,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: joins me with a big revelation in this new episode
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Stay with Us. On May sixteenth, nineteen ninety three, thirty
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: one year old Bronwyn Winfield tucked her two little girls
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: into bed at the family home in lenox Head on
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the New South Wales North Coast and vanished. Still there
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: are no answers, many of our listeners will know. The
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Australian's National Chief correspondent Headley Thomas is trying to change
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: that in his new investigative podcast series simply called Bronwyn.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: So far in this series, we've heard about Bronwyn's unhappy
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: marriage to John Winfield, who built the lenox Head house
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Bronwyn described as a prison. These are Bromwin's diaries being
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: read by a voice actor. When we moved to lenox Head,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I was even more lonely. The house that was Bill
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: became John's castle and my prison. We've heard how Bronwyn
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: was seeking a divorce from John and custody of her daughters.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: We've delved into her complex family history and the red herrings.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: The Ment Police didn't conduct a thorough investigation until years
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: after Bronwyn had disappeared. We know a coroner recommended John
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Winfield be prosecuted for her murder, and now in episode four,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: we're examining who else knew what and when Headley. Since
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: we launched the podcast, one of the things you were
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: very keen to ensure that we did was to set
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: up a special email address where listeners could contact you.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: That's Bronwyn at the Australian dot com dot au. We
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: share access to that mailbox and I can see you
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: in the reading and responding to the people who get
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: in touch. What's been the sense that you've got from
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the audience and the people who are motivated to reach
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: out to you.
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: I get a range of reactions from people who knew
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: Bromwan and want to share anecdotes and memories of their
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: time with her, People who actually also knew Bromwan's children
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: and remembered them as babies and recall how exceptionally close
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: and devoted Brommin was to her girls. And also people
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: who do know something. Sometimes they don't want to be
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: interviewed themselves, but they're making suggestions to me about talking
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: to someone they know with information, and that's led to
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: a number of new chapters and new interviews that have
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: been part of the series even at this early stage.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: One of the people who you've been in touch with
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: is John Winfield's former wife. We're calling her D, and
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: she's featured in an earlier episode of bromwin What was
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: D's account of being married to John Winfield?
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: D spoke to me about being a young woman married
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: to John, having fallen in love with him and been
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: involved with him in a relationship for several years before
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: they tied the knot, and then divorcing him after just
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: eighteen months of marriage, and D was pretty candid about
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: the problem at the heart of the relationship. She said
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: that John was very possessive, just always questioning her. When
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: they would walk down the street, when they would go
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: out somewhere together, she would be perhaps holding his hand,
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: they would be having what she thought was a nice outing,
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: but then she would be asked, why are you looking
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: at him? What do you see in that person? Why
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: were you staring at that guy? And she says, I wasn't.
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: After a while that became unbearable for her. She didn't
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: want to go on with the marriage, and they split up. Interestingly,
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: they had moved together to Lennox Head. They lived in
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: a caravan for some time in Sandstone Crescent, where they
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: had bought a block of land and were building a house.
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: This is the place that John has always loved. He's
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: wanted to live in Lenox and surf there. It's his
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: favorite beach break, and he believed that he was going
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: to live there with d But after they separated, she
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: had to go to court. There was a lot of
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: dispute because she said she was a good savior. She
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: had her own money. She had put money into the
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: relationship and into the property that they had been building together.
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: When it came time for them to part, and she
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: thought she would be able to leave with what she
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: had put in, he didn't want to give her anything,
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: and she said that she had to sue him to
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: get any money. And that's why when she reflects on
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: Bromwin's situation, she thinks about John's attachment to the first
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: house that he was building with her, just down the
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: road from where he would build a House with Bromwin
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: several years later.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Episode four of Bromwin features a snippet of the nineteen
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: eighty nine dark comedy Wore of the Roses. Kathleen Turner
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: and Michael Douglas's play a couple whose divorce turns bitter,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: and at the center of the dispute is the marital home.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I've thought about this a lot.
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: I really don't want to be married to you.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: And.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: I may have let you have the house, but now
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: you'll never get it. You will never get that house.
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: Do you understand that you will never get that house?
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: And that's the movie that Murray Nolan brom Win, Winfield's
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: next door neighbor, was watching on the night of May sixteenth,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three. He remembers that he was watching that
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: movie because something interrupted him. It was the sound of
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the Winfields car leaving their driveway next door. Why was
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: that unusual for Murray.
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: Murray had just got out of hospital. He'd taken off
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: on a particularly gnarly wave and been dumped and hit
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: The reef, broke his back and, as his wife deb
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: told me, crushed his spine like a can. He was
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: at home at night on the sofa watching the television,
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: and he heard the squeaky brakes of the car that
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: he knew so well, he said, the distinctive noise of
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: the white Ford Falcons brakes as they squeaked as the
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: car eased down the sloping driveway always made him realize
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: when Bromin or John were leaving the house. But this night,
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: when he heard the noise and then he looked outside,
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: he could see that the car didn't have the headlights
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: on and the engine wasn't turned on either, so the
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: car was leaving silently. But as the car went from
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: the driveway and onto the bitchmen of the road, it scraped,
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: So there was something Murray's surmise, that was heavier than
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: usual in the boot of the car, and the boot
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: scraped the bitchermen and left a groove in the bitchmen.
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: And then the car rolled silently down the hill of
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: Sandstone Crescent until it got to the bottom, and the
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: car then stopped and the engine was turned the lights
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: were turned on, and the car drove away. So it
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: was a very unusual way for the car to leave
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: the house. Murray hadn't seen that before.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: That was about twenty minutes to eleven pm. On that
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Sunday night. We know that Bromwin was never seen again,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and one thing we don't know is whether she was
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: in that car when it departed. John Winfield has told
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the police that he left the house that night with
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the couple's two young daughters and drove to Sydney after
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: he says Bromwin left the house and got into a
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: car with someone he didn't know. What have police thought
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: over the years about what was going on inside that car?
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: Headley Well, The police theory is that Bromwin's body was
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: probably in the boot of that vehicle. John emphatically denies that,
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: and he says that Bromwin had left about an hour earlier,
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: and that was because a car driven by an unknown
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: person had pulled up and she'd got in it to
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: go away for a break of a few days. John
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: doesn't deny that he was driving the white Ford Falcon
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: at that time. In fact, he admits that he was
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: driving the vehicle because that's around the time he must
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: have left the house to go to Sydney. He left
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: in a hurry with his two girls at about twenty
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: to eleven and he bought fuel at a service station
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: in nearby Ballina, at eleven oh six pm.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Coming up, what it will take for the justice system
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to revisit Bronwin Winfield's case. Subscribers to The Australian here
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: knew episodes of Bronwin first. They can also read articles
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: written about the case by Headley, as well as our
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: National crime correspondent David Murray and senior reporter Matthew Condon.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Plus subscribers get exclusive access to photos, maps, timelines and more.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Check us out at the Australian dot com dot a U.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: We'll be back after this break. Bronwyn Winfield loved her
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: little girls, Crystal and Lauren. They're now grown women, but
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: they've chosen not to be interviewed for Hedley's investigation. There's
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: good reason for that. Lauren Winfield is close to her
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: father John. For Crystal, it's more complicated. You've spoken to
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Christal in the course of researching and reporting this podcast, Headley,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: but she hasn't been interviewed. We see in the family photos.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: She's a blonde little girl, obviously with a very close
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: relationship with her mum, Bromwyn. Why hasn't Cristel wanted to
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: talk to you for this podcast?
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: Look, I think that question is one very personal to Crystal,
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: but from what I've understood in the conversations that We've had,
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: as well as conversations I've had with her mother's brother
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: and other members of Bromin's side of the family, Crystal
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: maintains a connection with her sister, Lauren, who was five
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: years old when Bromwyn disappeared. Kristal was only ten. She
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: also maintains a connection with her stepfather, John, she calls
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: John Dad, and Crystal's own biological father has been deceased
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: for some years. There's a strong view on Broman's side
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: of the family that Crystal is really torn and while
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: she wants answers, she does want to upset her stepfather.
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: She doesn't want to strain the relationship that she has
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: with Lauren.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Bronwyn winfield story bears a striking similarity to that of
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Lynnette Simms, who vanished from Sydney's Northern Beaches in nineteen
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: eighty two. Lynn's husband, the former rugby league star Chris Dawson,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: was convicted of her murder in twenty twenty, two, years
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: after the coroner, Karl Milvanovitch recommended Dawson be prosecuted for
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the crime.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: Christopher Michael Dawson on the charge to the donor about
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: eight January nineteen eighty two at Dayview or elsewhere in
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: the state of New South Wales. You did murder Lynette Dawson.
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: I find you guilty, mess of doubt.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Both stories fell through the cracks of a complex and
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: opaque criminal justice system. Dawson is now appealing his conviction,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: which came after Headley's twenty eighteen podcast investigation The Teacher's Pet,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: shed fresh light on what had happened four decades ago.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: You always go into these podcast investigations Heady with the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: goal of getting some answers potentially solving a crime. As
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I said, you're getting contacted by people who knew Bromwin
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: via that email Addre Bromwin at the Australian dot com
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: dot what's needed for this case to progress beyond where
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: it is now, which is the DPP in New South
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Wales declining to prosecute John Winfield.
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: I think all of these cold cases always require fresh
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: sets of eyes to review them, and that goes for
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: the office of the DPP as well. There's a lot
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: to be critical of the police about in this case
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: because for the first five years they really did a
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: terrible job and failed to act on a lot of
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: red flags suggesting that Bromwin would not have voluntarily just
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: abandoned her children, her house, her job, her friends and
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: home to start some new life. That wasn't plausible to
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: people who knew Bromwan back then, and it looks much
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: less plausible now in the context of a relationship that
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: was falling apart at that time. And the police, when
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: they came on board, did do a much more thorough
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: job with this case and took it to a coronial proceeding,
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: and then there was a finding by a coroner, and
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: then there was subsequent investigations by police. While all of
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: that was going on, the DPP declined to prosecute. But
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: what we don't know in all of these sorts of
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: considerations is whether the DPP has made its decision correctly,
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: whether it's made its decision based on all the information
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: and understanding of the case that they could possibly have,
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: or whether the decision was made in error. And the
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: reason we don't know is because that process is always concealed.
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: It's an opaque process. It's not transparent. There isn't any
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: way for victims or for police to properly understand why
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: apart from the blanket statement of insufficient evidence, these cases
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: don't run. Now with the benefit of hindsight looking at
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: all of the statements and evidence and new evidence that's
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: available that the DPP was probably not aware of at
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: the time. It's the kind of case that you think, well,
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: is someone considering it again and looking and wondering whether
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: this could be another case like Lynn's case involving her husband,
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: Chris Dawson, which should have been prosecuted way back in
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: the eighties or nineties, and when it was properly considered
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: again in twenty twenty two, it led to a prosecution.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Hilly Thomas is the Australian's National Chief correspondent and the
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: creator of the Bronwyn Podcast. Episode four is live for
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: subscribers now at bronwynpodcast dot com. That's bronwynpodcast dot com.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on the front this week. Our
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: team is Kristen Amier, Joshua Burton, Leott Sammaglue, Jasper League,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Tiffany Demac, Matthew Condon and me Claire Harvey.