A murderer has been stripped of his power over the graves of his victims in what is being labelled a 'historic' legal moment for Victoria. Robert Farquharson killed his three sons by driving them into a dam in 2005.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 It's safe to say it's probably one of the most infamous crimes in Victoria at that time
00:07 or during that period. It was, as you said, Robert Farquharson picked up his three kids
00:11 who were aged 10, 7 and 2 on Father's Day in 2005 and drove them into a dam in Winchelsea
00:17 and left them in the car as he escaped and all three boys died. So he was convicted of
00:24 life sentence which was later changed to life with a 33 year minimum. He's run out of all
00:29 of his appeals and this is a historic decision to strip him of his last remaining rights
00:36 over those children.
00:38 And why is this decision significant?
00:44 It is the first successful application of its type since these new laws were introduced
00:48 in 2021. The state government had put through the laws following another case with Karen
00:57 Rostewski over her family's concerns that her husband who killed her still owned their
01:02 gravesite. So that's what sparked the legislative change which finally came through in late
01:06 2021 and this is the first successful application, the first time a serious criminal or a murderer
01:13 has had their rights over a gravesite or a place of internment completely stripped away
01:18 from them.
01:20 And have we seen any reaction from the family to this decision?
01:26 So earlier this week I spoke to Stephen Moulse who was the husband of the boy's mum, Cindy
01:31 Gambino Moulse, who was also her partner at the time the boys were killed and they have
01:36 two children together. He spoke to me briefly this week and said basically that this was
01:42 the start of a new chapter for the family that's experienced extreme trauma through
01:46 all of this over I think it's almost two decades now and also that this was a legacy for Cindy.
01:52 I think we've got to grab he had this to say.
01:56 It's a remarkable feeling to know that you've been part of changing history. This is a huge
02:03 positive. Not only as I say, not only for my boys, but yeah, for all those families
02:15 out there that are fighting the system and want to remove the rights of some piece of
02:21 crap like Farquharson. So as you know, they can close their own chapters and move on.
02:28 So where Robert talks about closing a chapter there for others, it's sort of a, it's been
02:34 an issue that's keep coming up when I'm speaking to Respect Victoria or Stephen or their lawyers
02:41 that this, the use of the first successful application of this law is effectively the
02:48 moment where other families or other victims of crime may see that they have this option
02:52 open to them to close this almost perverse situation some people have found themselves
02:57 in. And many of them say it's another step towards reducing some of the coercive control
03:03 that some offenders and perpetrators can still have over their victims.
03:06 [BLANK_AUDIO]