MY DAM DEATHS COMPO FIGHT
STEPBROTHER TELLS
THE traumatised stepbrother of three boys murdered by their father in a Winchelsea dam 15 years ago is astonished authorities keep fighting his claim for compensation.
Luke Moules, now 23, was eight when Jai, Tyler and Bailey Farquharson drowned near his home on Father’s Day 2005.
He confirmed at the weekend his protracted legal battle for compensation was headed to the Supreme Court.
“I was at the scene of a triple murder, one of the most shocking murder cases in Victoria,” Mr Moules said.
“I have been left devastated by that. I was just a kid.”
Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and Bailey, 2, were deliberately driven into the dam by their father Robert Farquharson.
In 2011, a year after Farquharson was convicted of the murder and jailed for life, the boys’ mother Cindy Gambino tried to lodge Luke Moules’ compensation claim.
She phoned the Transport Accident Commission (TAC), which sent her a claim form. But it was never returned.
However, when Mr Moules showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder as a 21-year-old, and tried to renew his claim, he was told he was too late by a matter of months.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) last month agreed the form needed to be lodged by Mr Moules before he turned 21.
“The TAC acknowledge I would otherwise have been entitled to compensation under the TAC scheme but seek to rely on a technicality to reject it,” Mr Moules said.
“To have the TAC reject my claim on the basis the claim was apparently not lodged in time, even though it took a phone call on my behalf (by Ms Gambino) and completed the required form, is, quite frankly, astonishing to me.
“I don’t know what else
Cindy’s telephone call to the TAC was in 2011, other than lodging my claim.
“I don’t think she was calling just to say ‘Hello’.”
Geelong-based Fortitude Legal has lodged an appeal against the VCAT decision for Mr Moules to the Supreme Court.
Principal lawyer Tom Burgoyne said the TAC had an obligation to support Mr Moules.
He said the TAC accepted claims by telephone, and should have considered Mr Moules a claimant after Ms Gambino’s telephone call.
“To call it a great injustice is an understatement,” Mr Burgoyne said.
“As Victorians, our registration payments fund this scheme, which is meant to assist those in need. If the TAC can attempt to rely on a technical argument to deny compensation to a little boy at the scene of a triple murder by vehicle, then the community should, in my opinion, be very concerned.”