Public hearing wraps up in Sydney
An inquiry into unsolved gay hate deaths in New South Wales will hold its final public hearing today. The inquiry is the first if its kind in the world and was set up last April, following recommendations from a parliamentary inquiry.
Transcript
00:00 Well this inquiry examined unsolved cases in New South Wales between 1970 and 2010.
00:08 And it examined in detail 30 or more deaths during those four decades.
00:13 And during the course of public hearings it really delved into things like the social,
00:17 legal and cultural factors that have affected the LGBT community across those four decades.
00:24 And that includes the horrific levels of violence against the community, particularly in the
00:28 80s and 90s and what's fair to be described as a strained relationship between the LGBT
00:34 community and the New South Wales Police Force.
00:37 Now today during the closing address the Senior Counsel assisting Peter Gray will really deliver
00:43 some of the key themes of the last 18 months.
00:47 There's no new evidence expected today but Mr Gray is expected to give essentially a
00:51 reflection on the inquiry's work and the enormous effort that it's gone to to really get to
00:57 the truth of some of these cases.
00:59 Now one of the key themes that has emerged which is worth mentioning is the issue of
01:03 missing evidence.
01:05 We've learned throughout the course of these public hearings that there have been some
01:10 fiery exchanges between the Commissioner overseeing the inquiry and lawyers representing the New
01:15 South Wales Police Force.
01:17 And that's mostly been over the issue of the late or incomplete production of material
01:22 that the inquiry has been chasing from the police force.
01:25 We've learned through the course of those exchanges that in many instances this boils
01:30 down to the police force simply losing or misplacing exhibits including physical exhibits
01:35 and documents in some of these cold cases which really throws a spanner in the work
01:40 of cold case detectives who have been trying to get to the bottom of it.
01:43 So in that respect it wouldn't surprise anyone if one of the recommendations or several out
01:48 of this inquiry will be centred around that issue of missing exhibits and exhibit retention
01:53 and storage.
01:54 Jamie, have there been any breakthroughs as a result of the inquiry's work?
02:01 There are two cases in particular, Carina, that have had significant breakthroughs.
02:05 One of those is the case of 41-year-old Crispin Dye.
02:08 Now he was brutally bashed to death in an alleyway near Oxford Street in 1993.
02:14 He was a former manager of the band AC/DC and earlier this year we learned that Mr Dye's
02:19 bloodstained clothing had actually never been forensically tested, tested for DNA.
02:25 And that's despite this case being previously the subject of a monetary reward for information
02:30 and also an appeal for public information from police and also the advancement of DNA
02:37 testing technology, especially which really took off in the early 90s.
02:42 Now the inquiry was actually responsible for sending those exhibits for forensic testing
02:48 and as a result of that testing there was a match that turned up in the police database
02:53 from a crime scene around 2002.
02:57 The inquiry earlier this year learned that a person of interest linked to that crime
03:01 scene had died by suicide last year before any charges could be laid.
03:07 So there have certainly been breakthroughs and in addition to the public hearings that
03:11 we've been looking at, there have been a series of private hearings which have involved witnesses
03:16 giving evidence.
03:17 We don't know a lot obviously about what has gone on behind closed doors during those private
03:21 hearings but it's safe to say that that has probably produced some new lines of investigation
03:26 if the case of Crispin Dye is anything to go by.
03:30 The Commissioner overseeing this inquiry, Justice John Sacker, after today's public
03:34 hearing is due to publish a report by the 15th of December.
03:38 [BLANK_AUDIO]