Dam dad’s new freedom bid
One of Victoria’s worst child killers – the father who drowned his three sons in a Winchelsea dam – is getting ready to launch a new appeal against his life sentence.
Robert Farquharson, 54, twice found guilty of murdering his sons by driving his car into a dam outside Melbourne on Father’s Day in 2005, will launch a fresh bid for freedom by making use of laws introduced into Victoria in 2019.
Farquharson’s sons, Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and Bailey, 2, drowned in the dam near Geelong as he swam free of the car wreck. Under the new laws, an appeal can be made if there is fresh, compelling evidence that shows a substantial miscarriage of justice has occurred.
Farquharson’s lawyer Luke McMahon said a new appeal was in the works with the intention of lodging it in the coming months.
“The aim is to file prior to the end of 2024,” Mr McMahon said.
Farquharson succeeded in overturning an initial conviction for the murders but was convicted again at a second trial. He has maintained a coughing fit caused him to black out at the wheel of his car, which then plunged into the icy dam beside the Princes Highway.
But a friend testified that
Farquharson told him of the plot to kill his sons as revenge against his estranged partner Cindy Gambino-Moules. Ms Gambino-Moules died in 2022.
Farquharson’s supporters include specialist respiratory doctor Chris Steinfort, who believes the crash was an accident caused by a condition known as cough syncope, which can cause a person to black out during a coughing fit.
“I think he’s an innocent man,” Dr Steinfort, who testified at Farquharson’s previous trials, told ABC’s 7.30 program.
“It’s always somewhat distressing when you believe someone has had a miscarriage of justice and that I was somehow involved in that process.”
Farquharson’s new appeal is expected to point to the case of Geoffrey Ferguson, a truck driver jailed over a fatal crash near Shepparton in 2015. Ferguson, who was speaking hands-free on a mobile phone at the time of the crash, won his freedom after a court accepted he blacked out during a coughing fit.
Farquharson is serving a life term with a minimum nonparole period of 33 years at Barwon Prison.